The Commercial Appeal paper written on me on my day of Bachelors degree graduation

Long journey has a degree of satisfaction -- U of M ceremonies at Forum represent opportunity to new class of graduates

Commercial Appeal, The (Memphis, TN) - Sunday, May 7, 2006

Author: Lindsay Melvin Special to The Commercial Appeal

Double-majoring in electrical engineering and computer engineering is no easy task, says Folarin Osibodu. But neither was leaving his parents and friends in Nigeria.

"Here you have a lot of opportunities," said Osibodu.[...]

[...]Before coming to the University of Memphis, he spent a semester at a Nigerian college where professors were underpaid and students jockeyed for computers.

"In Nigeria, we don't have one computer for each person, and that just doesn't bring out your best creative work," he said.

His sister attended U of M as well, and this past week, for the first time in two years, his family came together to see them both graduate with honors.

"My father says he's the proudest father ever," said Osibodu.


...


For Osibodu, school's not over yet. He's still planning to go on for his MBA, and although he'd prefer to stay in the "land of opportunity," returning to Nigeria with an education is the best solution he can think of to help better his homeland, he said.

"No matter how much money you spend, knowledge needs to be there. Knowledge is power," he said.

Caption: Photo
Mike Maple/The Commercial Appeal Yoon Hong (left), 27, shares a laugh with her friend and fellow graduate Kyunghwa Kim, 24, during University of Memphis graduation ceremonies at FedExForum. They were among 1,600 receiving degrees Saturday.

Edition: Final
Section: Metro
Page: B1
Index Terms: graduation college speech
Record Number: 1117F4F269C4FA35
Copyright (c) 2006 The Commercial Appeal, Memphis, TN

I saved someone's life...financially

August 2010.

I was on a flight on my way back from Los Angeles. While in the air, the flight attendant announced that she would be passing forms from a major credit card company. It was a Master Card that had rewards of about $500,000. Really? Now, the flight attendant really sold the idea of this credit card very well...so well that even I almost saw something good in a credit card.

Over the years, I have put many hundreds of hours researching the financial industry -reading, listening to podcasts, talking to professionals. I have looked at the advantages and disadvantages of owning a credit card, I have listened to experts on the subject...looked at the Word of God, and put my own thought to it...after all that, I have come to a conclusion.

THERE IS NO REASON TO OWN A CREDIT CARD. Period.

So, after the flight attendant went through her spiel, she asked for people to raise their hand if they would like to fill a form. A few people raised their hands, including a younger sista who sat by my left. As I watched a dvd digital copy of a movie on my Macbook, I watched her through the corner of my eye as she tried to decide if she wanted to fill the form. It would be her first credit card.

As soon as she began filling the form, I stopped my movie and turned to her.

I asked for her name, she told me, and I told her mine. I said, "You don't need a credit card". "All that $500,000 reward-bonus-crap that she said, it is a lie." [Legally, she did not lie, but for 99.9% of credit card owners, it might as well have been a lie]. I explained to her why she did not need a card. I told her my story about credit cards, and how I had come to the conclusion that one can live well and survive in the U.S. without credit cards. I mentioned that I had not used a credit card in over 3 years, and here I am sitting in a plane that I paid cash for (Debit Card).

I explained to her that one's finances should boil down to a few simple rules:

Work for your money. Save your money. If you need to buy something that you cannot immediately afford, wait till you have saved enough, and then buy it. Also, give away 10% of your income.

She understood what I taught, and accepted it. Then I told her to tear the Master Card application form. The paper size was too thick to tear, so I helped her and ripped the form to shreds. We both laughed and exchanged more personal stories.

My hope and prayer is that she follows, not just this teaching, but the teachings of our grand-parents about money. Simple guidelines that work, that save people from financial disaster.

Topmost Tutoring - the founder's history

I would consider myself as someone who knows Mathematics, understands it, and is able to solve difficult Math problems. In my 2000 SAT, I my score placed me in the top 5% in the entire country.

Despite this Math skill, Mathematics did not come easy for me. From a very early age, I put in a tremendous amount of time and effort into studying Mathematics. I remember specifically in high school, I had great difficulty with grasping the concept of the negative sign (-).
For example, why is 3 - - 4 = 7, -3-4 = -7, -4 + 3 = -1 and 3 - 4 = -1

I used to get headaches trying to understand the rules of the negative sign. They seemed counter-intuitive to the way the mind normally worked. So, I asked 2 of my closest friends who seemed to understand it, but I could not understand their explanations. I spent countless hours studying the textbook, working on most of the problems at the end of the chapter (usually over 20 problems), until I finally got it.

I have many examples of situations in which it was difficult for me to understand a concept, but when I finally got it, I felt like nobody in the world understood it better than I did. After many years, I looked back and I could see the reason why I was allowed to go through a lot of mental pain in Mathematics...enter Topmost Tutoring.

When I started college at the University of Memphis, I was told that Math tutors were paid $10/hr. Many desk assistant jobs were paid $6.50 at the time. So, since I knew I could tutor, I applied. The manager nicely explained to me that 1st year students were not allowed to tutor, only Sophomores and above. So, I took the desk job, waited a year, applied for the tutoring job again, was hired and so it began.

Over the course of 4 years in college, I have had about 6 or 7 various tutoring jobs, depending of which was available during regular school season or the summer, or depending on what tutoring program was available. I became better at reading people, quickly understanding how they thought about a problem, then guiding them to the solution. I say guiding because I did not just hand them the answers. I would solve the first 1, 2 or 3 problems, then watch them solve the rest.

I noticed many of my students making the same mistakes that I made back in junior high and high school, mistakes that I had learned from. Therefore, since I knew how they approached the problems, it was easy for me to say, “I understand why you are thinking of it that way. It may seem logical for you to think of it that way, but that is not how it works, this is the way to think about it.”

Now, after finishing my Masters program. I want to use what I know, to add value to my community, and the world.

Topmost Tutoring was formed with the slogan, “We make difficult courses simple”. Our goal is to show that Math problems are like puzzles. When scattered, they look very complex and impossible...but as soon as you put the pieces together one step at a time in the right spots, they form one big puzzle. Ostensibly complex math problems are made up of of simple rules. The challenge to solve the problem, is that one has to know and understand every single rule that is required.
And that is where we come in. We will find out where the student is deficient. What laws were not covered in elementary school or junior high, what rules have been forgotten, and we will put it all together in a way that is easy to understand, and maybe even fun.

A friend of mine who has difficulty with Math said, “Math can be taught if the teacher is good enough, and Math can be liked if the teacher makes the subject engaging enough.” - Roberta

I told her that I would include her text message in one of our business plans, and I just did.

Our vision for Topmost Tutoring is to be the very best in Math tutoring in the world. We will make Math easy and fun to understand. Our vision is to eradicate the Math deficiency epidemic.

Skype goes public...files for Initial Public Offering (IPO)

I feel like a proud father whose son has graduated high school who is on his way to an Ivy League. Skype, the most popular Voice-over IP service is going public! Skype which was found in 2003 was acquired by eBay in 2005 for $2.6bn. It makes me happy to see a company that was formed not too long ago, going public. Skype provides incredible value to the world’s internet users, saves them money, and makes their lives easier and a little more convenient. We all know that if you can improve people’s lives & add value, you will be rewarded…the money will follow. This is the reason I am proud of Skype. I use Skype at home, companies and organizations use Skype in the office. In fact, many companies are encouraged to use Skype for international calls, rather than use the company phone, for the obvious reason-Skype saves companies millions of dollars in international calls. That is a real value.

Congratulations Skype, can wait to watch you graduate college-whatever that metaphor translates to.

The brain – remembrance

memory: the power of retaining & recalling past experience
remembrance: the ability to recall past occurrences

How is it that I am able to remember the words of the song that I learnt at 7 years old?
How am I able to remember
-all 4, old and new, email accounts' usernames & passwords?
-my banks’ usernames & passwords?
-my ATM PINS?

How on earth was I able to memorize one of my bank's account number and routing number?

How was I able to memorize my SSN? Okay, I guess most people remember that one.

The brain is awesome!

We have evolved computers that can compute mathematics faster than the human brain can. However, we haven’t perfected image recognition, & voice recognition in computers. Today, the computer insn’t as creative as the brain is…maybe later…

Computers have a long way to go

Full time student...no more

I recently filled a form at the dentist's office.

"Are you a full time student?"
I checked "No" for the 1st time in my life, after 26 years.

Woo! That is almost 3 decades of studying. No wonder I have a small headache. Being a student is great in many ways, but that is a topic for a different blog. But being out of school, I can actually 'do'.

What do I mean by 'do'?

I can create things now. Things that I do not have to turn in on monday morning for a letter grade. In addition to creating, I get paid for the same projects that I did in college, at work. Google's Marisa Mayer said, "Google is like Stanford, with stock options"

...

Team Leadership in College

Team Leadership in College

Aug 15, 2010

In all of my college & grad school courses, I do not remember any one course/project where a team leader was selected.

Our projects usually went something like this- "Okay, the 5 of us are here for this Marketing project for the rest of the semester. I guess let's divide tasks among ourselves...and we'll see how it goes..." This was the way teams worked in my experience during college.

A leader for the team was never explicitly chosen. Usually, over time, you got the sense that Mary was the unofficial team leader, or me, or Ola. Someone usually either takes the stage as the leader or finds his/herself delegating duties and stuff.

This is fine, but the problem with not explicitly naming one as the head is that no one takes the blame when things go wrong. I would encourage teachers & professors to have their class teams to select a team leader in every project. This way, everyone knows who to report to. Tasks are delegated properly, and when the "defecation hits the oscillation" (-credit http://twitter.com/jeffcannata), we know who to blame...and that is important in preparing students for life.

My Life as a Business

My Life as a Business

I am my own CEO
I am my own CFO
I am my own Chef
I am my own Chauffeur
I am my own Wardrobe department
I am my own Publicist
I am my own Barber
I am tasked with thinking of Ideas
I am tasked with managing Schedules
I am tasked with having a Social life: family, friends, relationships.


I wake up in the morning, take a bath, prepare breakfast, pick out the clothes to wear for the day (Wardrobe dept), get in the car and drive to work (Chauffeur). At work, I have a heightened sense of self, making sure I present myself well (Publicist)

After work, I buy some food at the grocery store, come home, check emails.

I am now my own assistant - replying emails, providing customer service.

I look at my schedule. I prioritize from most important to least. I still want to have some fun, so I include parties and hang-outs in there.

Then I log-in to my bank account. Open my budget spreadsheet & mint.com . I am now my own Chief Financial Officer.
"How much have I spent this month?"
"How much have I made this month?"
"Am I cash-flow positive?"
"Will I have money at the end of the month or year (Net Income)?"

Time to prepare dinner. I want to make a good one this time, so I bust out the cook book. I am now wearing the Chef's hat.

Then I sit down and think of ideas. What can I do in the short term, and what can I do in the future. Write them down, create a plan, make sure to follow it up.

Overall, I am my own Chief Executive Officer. I have to make sure each department is optimized with maximizing the resources. I have to make sure everyone knows their job very well and each task is executed or carried out in a timely manner.

My board of directors are my mentors, which may include friends and family. They guide me, I present ideas and life strategies before them, and they offer constructive criticism.

At the end of the week, the hair on my head has grown to be too much. It is ready for barbing, I grab my clippers with my right hand, two mirrors (a wall mirror and a hand mirror in my left hand)...I am now my own hair salon/ barber.

You should think of your life as a business, because it is. Maybe if we did, things might run more efficiently.

What do you do that is similar to how a business is run?

Time

I take time seriously. I do not like to be late. I lived in the US for almost a decade, but I think my perception and principle/philosophy of time was
formed earlier than that. First, I would never be late for a formal meeting.
But further, even if I were meeting a friend for coffee, I wouldn’t be late. Anytime, I am running late, I call or text minutes before that time, and alert them. Usually, I end up being like 3 — 5 minutes late.

In college, my friends would host parties, if the party start time was 8pm. I’d be there at 8pm. The hosts would even say, you know 8pm means get here at 10pm or 11pm.

When I hosted my own party, I made sure the start AND END time for the party was clear. Cos I always thought it made no sense to have a start time but no end time. Then I got calls from my friends saying the party interval was too short, so I laughingly extended it, but still kept to the end time, because I was a busy guy — You don’t graduate with 2 Engineering degrees and not manage your time properly.

In Nigeria, where I live, being late is fashionable. Even being late for appointments is not uncommon. But despite the level of traffic, or mishaps on the way, I almost always arrive early, because it is the right thing to do.

Same principle goes for when I owe someone money, or when I have a project to turn in. Sometimes, my friends don’t like it when they say, “I’ll call you back” and I ask “When?” I like to know when, so I’ll expect and I’ll be ready for you. They are used to it now though. I am so used to scheduling
my time that I often astound myself. One time, I was at work, I said I’ll call my girlfriend in 20 minutes when I got home. 20 minutes later, not longer, not earlier, I called and she was very impressed.

Nigeria currently does not have constant electricity supply. The common phrase in the event of a power outtage is, “Light has gone o” or “Light has come” when power is restored. Many years ago, maybe 6 or so, the president assured the citizens that in two years there will be constant power supply. 2 years passed, 3, 4, 5, 6, still “No light”. The plans were not properly drawn out with milestones, and realistic events to happen to make it a success.

Anyway, there are many examples of that, but personally and in my own life, I will always keep to time because keeping to time is keeping a promise.

My Short Story

My Short Story


So, I remember this one time, many years ago, I think it was in 2004/5, when I called my uncle because I had some issues to deal with on my mind.

Okay, so I've called him a number of times because I had some issues to talk about out loud, but that's not the point..ha ha :) However this time when I called him, and I was scared. I was afraid of what I could become in 10, 20 or 30 years if I continued to do what I did. If I continued to follow that path that I had laid before myself.

I had always been a brilliant student. I was an A student. When I made a B, I would cry inside, sometimes outside too. Maybe there is nothing so wrong with that, but I saw a vision of myself, being this brilliant guy in my office at the University, solving equations for the rest of my life, doing research. Okay maybe there is not much wrong with that, people do it. On top of that, I was not very social. I was shy as a kid, I had a very heavy stutter, the former may have caused the latter, or otherwise. I had only a few friends, I could not wait to get out of the party, or the crowd, and go to my room to study.

After a while, I did not want to be that brilliant professor that invented stuff, but was not fulfilled and had no money.

So, I called my uncle, and told him that I was scared, and I did not want that life. Of course, he had no idea where I was coming from, but he listened, and tried to help with calming words.

You should know that I did not reach this decision all by myself, my dad helped. On one of his visits, he noticed I was still that brilliant student who enjoyed his books, so he tried to hint at me to embrace other things, like sports, other subjects, other interests. I guess I could not see past the hint.

He traveled, but asked one of his close friends to call me at home. His friend called and spoke to me, as an elder, and made me realize how important these other things are in order to maintain balance in life.

He asked me, "What month is the super-bowl held every year?".
"I don't know", I answered.

"Usually February" he stated. "What month is the presidential elections every 4 years?", he asked again.

I still didn't know.

"November"

He made me understand that, one should be as well rounded as one could. Have enough knowledge of the other things that are not your main passions so that you can carry a conversation with a stranger on the street, or with your co-workers at the water filter.

I knew he had a point, but he didn't have to talk to me like I was his son? Oh Yes!, he had to speak to me that way, that was the only way that I would have gotten the point.

Fast forward a few years, I had become a little more sociable, I went to business school, got a Master of Science in Management. Found the courses to be as interesting as I found in Engineering. I follow basketball, some football.

I created a podcast in 2006. I was part of the early adopters and producers of this new form of media. The feeling I got from this new creation was something I had never felt before. I created something that I could call my own. Bought a headset with mic, learned XML and learned how to create a website in 3 days. I learned how websites and servers work, I understood the technology and created the actual content. I was an Entrepreneur. I spent $14 to create a medium that radio stations spend millions of dollars on, yet I could be heard on the other side of the world, but they could not.

I sold my books online and made $3000 in 5 years. When my Teaching Assistantship was canceled due to budget cuts, even though I was abroad, I called all college departments to find openings. I called everybody I knew, that could help me find another job. When I got back, I networked with classmates, finally found another assistantship that paid almost double the original...in a recession by the way. From a shy kid, to a hustler.

I had a great relationship with a beautiful girl. The first time I noticed her, I went after her, asked her out a few days later, and shared a very fulfilling portion of my life with her. We are still friends today, and stay in touch very closely.

There are many more examples, that appear small but are really significant.

Even though I had influences from my family and friends, the final decision still remained for one person to make, to change the course of his life, ME. I decided I wanted to be more assertive in my opinions. If I knew what I was talking about, I said so. If I didn't want something, I said No.

I remember working minimum wage one summer while in undergrad. I called one of my many aunts and said, "I want to know about the law. I want to understand how the legal system works." A few years later I found myself in a Business Law class in grad school, and enjoyed it. Even though I did not know it would happen the way it did, I spoke it, and it came to pass.

Anyway, my point is, I was likely headed in a direction of an unfulfilled, unenjoyable life, so I changed the course. And oh my God, it was difficult, because people knew me a Mr. X, and all of a sudden I was acting like Mr. Y. But they had to get used to it, and I had to as well. I am a happier person today.

Thank God.