I had a rather peculiar childhood; I was an only boy growing up with six sisters, most of whom were older. We constantly had a sea of female visitors passing through our house, not to mention the endless sea of female clothing that flooded the entire house. The female gossip meaningful conversations were a constant and needless to say, so were the endless romantic South American soap operas with the English voice overs (that moved faster than the lips of the cast).

Early on in life, I became fully aware that the only place where men have control over the TV remote is on TV; as the only time I actually got to watch what I wanted, was when my sisters were cleaning, baking, trying on clothes or talking on the phone (I got extra viewing minutes if it was a boy on the other end of the conversation).

Those precious moments when I had the liberty to tune to whatever TV station I wanted, usually seemed life changing, albeit short lived because most times as soon as I wanted to change the TV channel NEPA or PHCN (as they are referred to now) would strike.

One fateful day, by some sort of divine orchestration I had three whole hours in front of the TV with the remote control and absolutely no sister in sight! It was such an epic moment and I was determined to make the most of it! I watched all the cartoons showing and all the WWE episodes as well (then it was called WWF, I was a huge Hulk Hogan and Shawn Michael fan). I flicked through the TV Channels looking for something else to watch and then I stumbled on this young man with a clean shave speaking boldly.

He had the same kind of haircut I had when I was a kid. I was fascinated by the way he spoke; so confidently without mincing words. He spoke on how he was the greatest and how irrelevant his competition was. He told stories of his skills and his long tedious hours of practice.

As I watched him speak, I smiled to myself. ..what audacity, I thought to myself …“When I grow up I want to be like this man”! I kept on watching as the documentary showed some of his fights and narrated the skillful ways he knocked some of his opponents out. According to the narrator he was extremely fast, both in knocking out his opponent and in dodging punches.

This fascinating man kept on talking. He drifted to a story about how he worked hard behind the scenes, how training days were so tedious and many times he wanted to give up, but he kept going strong with the end goal in mind – being the Champ; The world’s greatest. Then he said I am Muhammad Ali.

At the time, he was truly the world’s greatest. What aroused my curiosity wasn’t just the story of his long hours of practice, but most importantly, the manner in which he spoke about himself and his goals.

So here was a man who practiced a lot and who worked hard like most people trying to excel at something do. However, he had an extra strategy…he also talked hard!

In other words, he worked hard and he talked hard.

His words were imprinted in my memory from that day and as I grew older, I was taught that practice makes perfect.
However, my goal wasn’t perfection. Muhammad Ali was not perfect, Muhammad Ali lost some fights, but he found excitement and satisfaction in the pursuit of his goal towards being the world’s greatest.

He found something more powerful than perfection…He found excellence. Perfection is black and white with no grey areas. Anything other than perfect is considered to be a failure. This keeps the pursuer of perfection almost in bondage to ensure that he does not fall short of expectations.

On the other hand, the pursuer of excellence is more likely to succeed because he or she is not handicapped with the fear of failure but is able to enjoy the process and take more risks thereby increasing his/her chances of success.

This is what entrepreneurs in Nigeria need, the ability to also talk the dream to complement their hard work and consistency. It is not enough to just practice and work hard, you must also be able to speak passionately, convincing and confidently about your vision and your goals.

Several years ago, I visited the city of Accra in West Africa with my girlfriend, the only thing I brought back from that trip was a picture of Muhammad Ali with one of my favourite quotes of his: “if my mind can conceive and my heart can believe it then I can achieve it”. This picture has been hanging in my bedroom for 4 years now, and it reminds me to always talk hard and work harder in my relentless pursuit of excellence.

This piece is dedicated to the mentor I never met: Muhammad Ali – the world’s greatest.

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Op–ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija

Charles Odii is a Brand and communication strategist, who is passionately about small businesses. He is also a PhD student at the Pan Atlantic University