The Drive to Aim High Read online

  For me, serving the guests was a responsibility that I took seriously, and I did it with all my might, heart, and consciousness. As Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. once stated, “If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as a Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, 'Here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well.’”

  With this attitude, I soon moved on to my next family, my third adoptive family and beloved step-father.

  Lessons from School in Canada

  My step-father, G. Marcus Kelley, was a diplomat. It so happened that when I first met him, he had just received a post at the Liberian Embassy in Ottawa, Canada. Again, as I mentioned above, he had recognized my positive attitude and follow-through behavior, especially with guests at my step-mother’s home, so he asked if he could take me along with him to Canada as his adoptive son. I could not have asked for a better opportunity at that time in my young life. It was truly a unique chance.

  We ended up departing from Liberia to Canada on the outskirts of the Civil War there. This was a true blessing. The move gave me a wonderful chance to study and grow my academic skills at an entirely new level.

  Back in Liberia, my elementary schooling was short, as was my time as a child. I had been promoted to the seventh grade just before we left. I was now 18 years old. Remember, I had only begun to properly read and write by the age of 15. However, when I arrived in Ottawa, I was enrolled directly in the ninth grade, due to my age. This “promotion” unwittingly caused me to jump over two years of middle school education. Those two years are some of the most formative, foundational years that are deemed so important in the educational process, and yet, I missed them.

  My new school was a trade/technical high school. Trade high schools are designed to provide vocational education. They give students technical skills required to perform the tasks of a particular industry and specific job upon graduation.

  Immediately after school started, my Auto Mechanics teacher noticed me. I was different from the other kids, most of whom were from the Caribbean. However, it was not my looks or skills that my teacher noticed. My observation mindset made the difference. I was attentive, focused on everything around me, careful on details, and committed to results. During my first few months in the technical high school, I had a very positive attitude and was eager to learn.

  Each assignment or classroom project was a wow for me. I couldn’t wait to ask questions or finish my assignment and ask the teacher for another task. I was active, very observant, and completed all of my assignments with passion. After all, it was my first time having this level of education and being in such a great learning environment. Looking back now, I have a strong belief that I could have become a successful auto mechanic or run a business in the auto industry had I graduated from my technical high school. That period rooted in me a strong and everlasting possibility mindset.

  But, certainly one of the biggest gifts I received by moving was the gift of entering a country filled with possibilities: culture, customs, and business practices. Canada extended the warmest of welcomes to me. One example is that after a little time and without my knowledge, my Auto Mechanics teacher noticed my work and approached the school director/board requesting that I be evaluated to assess my skills level.

  Although I was very happy in the vocational school where I was at the time, I was very thrilled to find out that my assessment scores resulted in a recommendation that I be given the green light to move to a high school.

  Up until that time in my life, this was by far my biggest achievement. It was a big kind of aha moment because the assessment results meant that I was academically somewhere above the level of the average kids in my school. This awareness served to motivate me even more to do my best at all times and to explore all possibilities.

  I was determined and focused on learning, and now I had gained the opportunity to learn other disciplines in high school. I remember the smile across my dad’s face when I took the report to him. He was so very proud of me, showing a greater deal of emotion than I could ever have hoped for.

  He then told me, “The possibility was only possible because you believed it was possible.” I’ll never forget that. I was helped by a performance school system and given an excellent opportunity. I was prepared to work hard and make myself worthy of that opportunity. Furthermore, the mere fact that upon graduation from a high school I could attend either college or university opened a whole new world for me!

  Upon moving to the high school, I spent most of my time away from home. I was part of the school’s sports team and focused on track and field, basketball, and softball. We had practices every morning and sometimes in the afternoons, when I could stay to participate. Besides day schooling, I also had to attend night school in order to earn additional credits needed to graduate as well as to catch up on those missing years of schooling.

  Night school was also important in order for me to improve my English and reading skills. You see, the school system in Canada is based on credits. Students need to earn a number of credits until twelfth grade before they can graduate from high school. It was definitely a challenge, but again, I was extremely motivated. I did not care about all the extra work and time I had to put in. I was happy to be so busy and thrilled to be learning so much.

  My learning was accelerated because both the education system and the culture in Canada were so supportive. As Carol Dweck wrote in her book, Mindset: The New Psychology of Success, “Culture can play a large role in shaping our beliefs.” For me, being in Canada helped me believe that everything was possible.

  I made lots of friends at my new high school. My best friend, George, was born in Canada after his parents emigrated from Lebanon. One summer, George had a part-time job at a very big hotel, taking care of the parking lot. I remember visiting him one night and being awestruck by all of the beautiful, fancy cars he watched over.

  I also loved being on the sports team of the school. The tradition of the school was to announce the team’s performance as well as the best individual results each time we attended a competition. For me, it was all about hearing my name being read on the school radio, which I believed made me more attractive to the girls. Schooling was all about learning, growing and fun. It was such a great time in my life. This sadly came to pretty much a screeching halt, when I arrived home one night to find out from my dad that we were to be transferred to Romania.

  I had never heard of Romania before. At school the next day when I told my friends and teachers about our upcoming move, I remember my coach asking me, “What did your dad do to your government?” He made it sound like my dad had upset someone from the foreign ministry, or that someone wanted to punish him. I didn’t understand what he meant until we later arrived in Romania. It didn’t take long for understanding to dawn on me as I quickly became aware of the dire conditions there.

  I want to take a bit of time now to backtrack a little in order to share some of the historic events that took place in Romania around the time we first arrived, and for the first few years I lived here.

  At the time we arrived, Romania was under Nicolae Ceausescu’s communist regime. It was still a year before the revolution would take place. This meant severe austerity measures for Romanian citizens, and a massive decrease in living standards, such as food shortages that became part of our everyday lives.

  Also, shortly after we arrived in Romania, an extremely important and heinous event unfolded. It was the Liberian Civil War, which killed about 250,000 people and very well could have killed me if I had not left.

  The horrific war lasted for nearly 15 years, and many of the victims included child soldiers. More than half of Liberia’s war-ravaged population was under the age of 18.

  Around the age of 12, children were forced into becoming child soldiers. I still get chills thinking that it could have been my fate, too, had I not been bless
ed to leave Liberia when I did. Of the 1.4 million children, it is estimated that as many as 15,000 to 20,000 served as child soldiers in the Liberian Civil War.

  I knew that I was incredibly fortunate, beyond lucky, really, that I now lived in Romania with my step-father. During the Civil War, Liberian children had no access to schools. Many basic needs weren’t met. Coming to Romania without completing high school wasn’t part of my perfect scenario, but I certainly had multiple advantages over those children back in my homeland. I was well aware of that and more than grateful.

  I had been on a fast track in Canada with its perfect culture and superb educational system. Additionally, I had made many friends that meant a lot to me. Then one day, at the ring of a fax machine, it was time to move on to Bucharest, Romania. There, things would be radically different. I could have easily assumed that my destiny of becoming a “big man” was finished, but I had already learned through experience that I had to see Romania as merely another opportunity to fulfill my destiny. By now, deeply rooted in my mind, I had developed a valuable new mindset: the possibility mindset.

  Steps to Integrate the Possibility Mindset into Your Daily Life

  If you have found solutions in the past, you can do it again. Think of a time you found a solution to something that no one else offered. The goal here is to anchor yourself in the possibility mindset so that you build a muscle of being proactive rather than reactive when it comes to being faced with problems.

  Think of reasons why you can do something rather than on why you can’t. Anyone can come up with lots of reasons why something won’t work. Only a few people can come up with lots of reasons why something can work, or will work. Become one of those people. Be the one to hear a co-worker’s insane idea or dream and say, “I think you can do that!” or “That’s totally possible,” and then work to help him/her come up with reasons why it will work.

  Start. Contrary to popular belief, you don’t need to “believe to achieve.” You just need to get started and take action, one step at a time. I did not believe in myself when I started school in Romania because I had never done these things (math, physics, chemistry) before. But, I knew that if I continued to move forward, taking action, those things would change.

  Set high goals. There is a saying that goes, “If you aim for the stars, even if you fall short, you can still land on the moon.”

  Understand the difference between your destination goal and your performance goals. Determine what you need to learn to reach your destination. I wanted to be a successful man, but I had to understand that along the way, my performance goals (meaning learning the skills I needed to become successful) were just as important as my destination.

  03

  THE RESILIENCE MINDSET

  “Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.”

  —Confucius

  Just as you can’t learn patience without being put into situations that demand it, you can’t learn resilience unless you encounter and deal with disappointment, loss, or hardship. I was about to encounter the most opportune change for my personal development, even though it would be the most difficult change for my personal life. Romania, as difficult and challenging as it was, would be a gift because it taught me the resilience mindset.

  When I left Canada, I had not, unfortunately, graduated from high school. While living there, I had made a lot of good friends and had also progressed greatly in my learning. As I also shared earlier, Canada had afforded me the ability to enjoy the best time in my life up to that point, in terms of my learning and development.

  But, everything changed when my dad called me saying that he had received a fax from Liberia. He said, “We are going to be moving to Romania.” It was a real shock to me. My wonderful life in high school was about to be turned upside down. Because I didn’t see it coming, I was very poorly prepared to move to a new place, especially a communist country. It felt to me that we were expected to get packed, leave our life in Canada behind, and get to Romania as soon as we could.

  By that time, I had been promoted to the eleventh grade. I was now twenty. I reminisced about my arrival in Canada three years before. I had been placed in the ninth grade based on my age, not my prior educational experience. I was so grateful I was able to spend almost three wonderful years in Canada before we left for Romania. Those three years helped prepare me for my next mindset lesson.

  Our departure from Canada was not planned at all. For my dad, it was a promotion to the next level. I discovered that we had just a couple of months to prepare for the move. I hated to leave my school and the many good friendships I had formed. Actually, it was when I told my friends that I was going to be leaving, that they first realized I was not a Canadian and that my father was a diplomat. The Canadian culture is so permissive; they didn’t care where I came from.

  At the end of the school year, all my teachers wished me well as my last day at school approached, making it very touching. Besides the parties with my friends, I also frequently visited them at their homes, trying to enjoy their company for as much as I could before leaving. On behalf of my dad and me, the Embassy organized receptions to wish my dad farewell and success on his new assignment.

  The morning of our departure, the Embassy chauffeur took us to the airport. We caught our flight which took an entire day. We had to change planes because it was not a direct flight. In those days, direct flights to Romania were few and far between. There were probably just three or four direct flights from Europe to Romania. Communism was in full swing there when we arrived.

  When we finally got there, it was night. I was shocked because the airport was so dark, feeling quite surreal. There were armed officers everywhere. Because on our route we had changed planes in a modern European airport, I expected the Romanian airport to be at least similar to that airport. I never thought it could be so incredibly different. I realized that I really knew nothing about Romania. Seeing those armed guards all over the place and starting to experience what the country was all about was a major shock.

  Upon our arrival, we were escorted to the airport’s diplomatic waiting room. There was a VIP lounge where we waited for the staff from the Liberian Embassy. We didn’t speak the language, and because it was our first time in Romania, our airport clearance process was taken over by the Embassy staff.

  The only similarity to our departure from Canada was the diplomatic car waiting for us, along with a chauffeur from the Embassy. That was one of the few things that felt at least a little familiar. But, this ride was eerie and quite strange. I remember as we rode away from the airport that night, the streets were pitch black.

  During those years in Romania, the streetlights were turned off at night. This was during the height of a Communist era, where the policy was basically scarcity of everything: electricity, gas, and even the lights on the street. Most of the houses were hidden by the darkness. A cold chill ran up my spine looking at those streets. My first impression of Romania was that it was pretty much the polar opposite of Ottawa, and that it felt intimidating and scary.

  I stayed home for the first month, which was not all that bad. I was getting accustomed to the new environment and making new friends. My father was busy getting acclimated to the embassy and taking over the responsibilities from the current ambassador.

  On our second day at the residence, the chauffeur introduced to us the lady who was going to take care of my dad and me. She was the maid. It turned out that the embassy staff had already hired her before we arrived. She became someone who, for many years, even after she was not working for us anymore and until she passed away, was a presence in my life and the life of my family. Her name was Mariana, and she was a wonderful person. Mariana was Romanian, but she had previously worked for different African embassies in Bucharest, so she knew how to cook our traditional menus, which was very important for our diet.

  During those years, there were a lot of bilateral agreements between Romania and the African states, resulting in an
impressive number of students coming from all over the African countries to complete their studies in Romania. I soon discovered that there were many African and Liberian students studying in Romania. Compared to the situation in Canada, where there had been no Liberian students, in Romania, many of them were studying topics in universities like medicine, pharmacy, and economics, and some were even pursuing their PhDs.

  With so many Liberian and African students around, I began to feel more at home, and like I belonged to a community. At the same time, this brought to light one of my father’s very important values: soon he became, in a sense, their surrogate father. Our home was always open to the Liberian students. Most of them came after their studies to have a decent meal. Mariana would cook enough food so that anytime we had a visitor, they would have something to eat.

  For the Liberian community and even many other foreign students, our residence became their second home in many ways. This was all possible because of my father’s openness to receive them at any time and to sort of cater to their needs.

  As I got to know better the Liberian and African students who loved hanging around our home, I realized being part of that community created a sense of unity. I found this to be very supportive as I was learning to develop my resilience, which I needed in order to adapt and go on with my studies. It also helped me to learn the local culture as well as the local and national laws. Moreover, it was often a lot of fun! This was another blessing.

  Most of the students were older than I, with a few of them around my age. In a way, some of them became my mentors. Having been in Romania for many years, they were quite knowledgeable about the local culture. They taught me how to get around in Bucharest, or how to handle local cultural issues that were not evident on the surface. There were many restrictions in terms of movement during those days. But, after living for some time in a country under a communist government, they were in a position to better explain to us what it meant to be foreigners here.