Tag: Leadership

10 Outlier Things Future Leaders Should Be Doing Now(For Those Who Know They’ll Lead One Day)

Cornelius NdubuisiLeave a comment
Source: Canva

Everybody talks about “preparing for leadership” as if leadership is a conference you register for two weeks before it starts.

But the truth is simpler and more uncomfortable:

If you will lead tomorrow, it will show in what you are secretly doing today.

Forget the predictable advice: “read more,” “take courses,” “network.”

Those are fine, but they’re mainstream. Leadership has become a buzzword, and buzzwords don’t build people.

Let’s talk about the outlier things, the unexpected disciplines that  build capacity for the kind of leadership that lasts.

1. Learn To Function Without Applause

If you still need compliments to feel competent, you’re not ready for leadership. Because the day you lead, the applause stops and the complaints begin. Train your soul now to work in silence. That’s where real power forms.

2. Practise Making Decisions With Incomplete Information

Most people wait until they “know enough.” Leaders rarely enjoy that luxury. Start making small but real decisions with 70% of the data. It trains your courage, your judgement, and your ability to live with consequences.

3. Build Friendships Across Social Levels Especially “Downwards”

Future leaders are not the ones chasing celebrities but the ones who understand the value of ordinary people: cleaners, technicians, admin, assistants, drivers, interns, etc. These people teach you humility, give you unfiltered intelligence, and later become the backbone of whatever you lead.

4. Learn The Art Of Being Misunderstood Without Becoming Bitter

Future leaders will be misread, misquoted, misjudged. If you take everything personally now, you’ll fall apart later. Train yourself to hold your truth gently without becoming defensive or vengeful.

5. Master Boring Consistency

Leadership is less about charisma and more about reliability. Set one small discipline: sleep, prayer, reading, budgeting, gym, and do it for six months. The goal of consistency is to keep pushing hard even when it’s not fun.

6. Start Treating Relationships As Long-term Investments, Not Quick Returns

A future leader doesn’t use people. They store people gratefully, respectfully, intentionally. Send a message to someone who once helped you.

Check on a former mentor.

Keep relational bridges intact.

Leadership collapses when it is built on transactional networking.

7. Practise Self-control In Small Things

How you handle:

  • your appetite
  • your temper
  • your screen
  • your spending
  • your impulses

is the rehearsal for how you will manage power. If you cannot discipline your cravings, power will simply amplify your chaos.

8. Serve Where Nobody Is Watching

Don’t wait for titles.

Wash dishes.

Stay back to stack chairs.

Offer help without publicity.

Leadership that doesn’t begin in service always ends in tyranny.

9. Study People More Than You Study Textbooks

Emotional intelligence is a crucial survival skill. Watch how people respond under stress. Notice what motivates different personalities. Observe how conflicts escalate or de-escalate. A leader who cannot read people will eventually be ruled by them.

10. Build An Inner Life Deeper Than Your Outer Ambition

Leadership without depth collapses at the slightest pressure.

Invest in silence, reflection, prayer, journaling, self-honesty.

Your mind and spirit must grow faster than your opportunities, or those opportunities will choke you.

Final Thought

If you sense leadership in your future, don’t wait for titles, elections, or invitations. Leadership is not something you step into but something you grow into. Do these 10 outlier things now, and when the time comes, leadership will not feel like a promotion. It will feel like a natural continuation of who you have already become.

5 Lessons “A House of Dynamite” Taught Me About Life, Leadership, and Fragility: A Movie Review

Cornelius NdubuisiLeave a comment

I recently finished watching A House of Dynamite (2025), Kathryn Bigelow’s new Netflix political–nuclear thriller starring Idris Elba, Rebecca Ferguson, and Jared Harris. Written by Noah Oppenheim, it’s a film that drops you right into the nerve centre of a world teetering on the edge.

A single, unidentified nuclear missile is detected, heading for the United States. What follows are 18 excruciating minutes replayed through the eyes of the military, the intelligence community, and the President himself.

The title, as Idris Elba’s President remarks in a line quoting the writer Norman Cousins, is “a reminder that we all live in a house of dynamite pretending the fuse isn’t lit.”

I said finished because the time I started watching it was different from when I actually finished it. I paused several times, not because the story was slow, but because my heart was pounding too fast. I even stepped outside at some point just to breathe. When I returned, the whole thing had gone from a regular movie-watching time to an experience that pressed down on my chest. And just when I feared the worst and hoped for the best at the same time, the film abruptly ended, leaving me to imagine the rest.

Trust me, the rest was unimaginable. Maybe that’s why the writers left it open-ended, because the only way to picture how it could end is if the real thing ever happened. And may it never.

A Lit Fuse

It’s a film about being caught off guard, about decades of preparation humbled by one unlucky miss, about systems that fail precisely when they’re needed most, and about the crippling paralysis that descends when too many decisions have to be made in too little time.

Picture this: in the Pentagon’s command post, alarms blare and screens flash red; in Fort Greely, Alaska, officers are frantically recalibrating interceptors; in the White House Situation Room, no one can confirm where the missile originated. And somewhere beneath all that chaos, Secretary of Defence Reid Baker, upon being evacuated, makes a brief, faltering call to his estranged daughter, a goodbye disguised as small talk, before walking out, removing his security tag, and leaping to his death. A silent protest against the unimaginable failure of a system built on the promise of control.

The world’s most powerful military was suddenly clueless, helpless, and frightened. The Ground-Based Midcourse Missiles failed to intercept. Communications collapsed. And for once, no one, not even the president, knew what to do.

Lessons from A House of Dynamite

1. Life happens behind the scenes, often beyond our awareness

As you go about your normal day, unseen forces are at work deciding the quality of your life, sometimes even whether you live or die. The ten million Chicagoans who would die upon impact never knew that in those seventeen minutes, their fate had already been sealed. We live each day unaware of how fragile everything is. In one of the film’s most moving moments, Secretary Baker calls his estranged daughter, just to hear her voice, but never manages to tell her what’s coming. And she, on the other hand, doesn’t realise that it is the last time they’ll speak. That’s how close and how distant life and death can be.

2. The weight of leadership is real

President Elba’s character once thought the nuclear football was purely symbolic, a deterrent, not a tool to be used. Until the day came when the impossible sat right in front of him. That’s what leadership often is: facing the nightmare you prayed would never arrive. Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown.

3. Crisis reveals what training conceals

Everyone in those command posts saw and heard things they had never faced before. The alert rising to DEFCON 1. The intercepts failing. Systems collapsing. Designated survivors being whisked away under uncertain orders. In moments like that, training turns to instinct and instinct turns to fear. The calmest people are often the ones who know there’s no playbook for what’s unfolding.

4. Fortune is rarely fair, and luck is never logical

When FEMA’s new deputy was evacuated as a designated survivor, someone muttered, “She’s barely been here a year.” But in that chaos, it wasn’t merit that mattered, but luck. Life is like that. The day that tests your fortune doesn’t ask how long you’ve been around; it simply asks whether your name was on the list.

5. We can’t be too prepared, but we can be grounded in hope

All the systems, budgets, and simulations failed. What remained was faith and the trembling belief that maybe, somehow, it wouldn’t all end in fire. Preparation can take us far,, but hope carries us the rest of the way. And maybe that’s the lesson the movie wanted to leave us with: that the world may be wired for destruction, but we’re wired for hope.

    Watch it and watch it again!

    A House of Dynamite serves as a mirror held up to a world that pretends to be safe because it’s uncomfortable to imagine otherwise. It’s unsettling, brilliant, and brutally honest. It’s the kind of film you don’t just watch but survive.

    So, if you’ve seen it, watch it again, this time, with intent. Watch for the silences between orders, the faces behind the screens, the fear behind the protocol. And if you haven’t, find it on Netflix, and prepare to be moved, disturbed, and awakened. Because, in truth, we all live in a house of dynamite.

    How Jeff Bezos Turned Obsession into a Superpower

    Cornelius NdubuisiLeave a comment

    Jeff Bezos is precision wearing patience. He’s not the loudest man in the room, nor the most unpredictable. His power comes from something different, obsession so consistent it became a strategy.

    Bezos built one of the world’s largest companies by caring about one thing with monk-like discipline: the customer. While others chased hype, he chased improvement. While others bragged about quarters, he built for decades. His superpower isn’t brilliance or charisma but the ability to stay fixated long after everyone else gets bored.

    Here are five lessons from a man who turned obsession into an empire.

    1. Be customer-obsessed, not competitor-driven

    Most leaders watch the competition like hawks. Bezos ignored them. His eyes were always on the customer, their pain points, their frustrations, their expectations that no one else was noticing. Amazon didn’t invent e-commerce but perfected convenience. Same way it didn’t invent cloud computing, either, but still made it indispensable. Competitor obsession creates reaction. Customer obsession creates innovation. Bezos understood that while rivals fight over market share, the customer quietly decides who wins.

    The lesson: The surest way to stay ahead is to stop racing others and start serving deeper. When you obsess over who you serve, competition becomes irrelevant.

    2. Think in decades, act in days

    Bezos popularised the “Day One” mindset, a warning against complacency. “It’s always Day One,” he said, meaning the hunger, urgency, and curiosity of a startup should never fade. He plans like a futurist, but executes like a founder racing a deadline. The patience to think in decades gives direction; the discipline to act in days gives momentum. He doesn’t confuse long-term vision with slowness. Amazon’s speed is legendary precisely because its goals stretch far beyond the quarter.

    The lesson: Long-term thinking isn’t about waiting; it’s about staying committed longer than anyone else. The future rewards those who start early and keep going.

    3. Boring consistency is a hidden weapon

    Bezos once said, “We are willing to be misunderstood for long periods of time.” That’s the patience of a builder who values boring consistency over exciting detours. While competitors announce new ideas every few months, Amazon improves packaging, delivery times, and inventory systems. The world celebrates sparks of genius, but Bezos built bonfires of routine. His success didn’t come from big moves but from relentless micro-improvements that compounded over years.

    The lesson: Greatness often looks repetitive. Mastery isn’t magic but the small things done relentlessly well until they look effortless.

    4. Build systems, not just success stories

    Amazon isn’t one business. It’s a machine that builds businesses: retail, logistics, cloud, entertainment, AI. That’s because Bezos built processes.He designed mechanisms, feedback loops, hiring principles, and decision frameworks, that ensured the company could grow without him being everywhere. Where others try to scale effort, he scaled efficiency. The result? A company that continues to evolve even when he steps back.The lesson: Don’t just build something that works. Build something that keeps working without you. Systems outlive ambition.

    5. Let logic outlast emotion

    Bezos once said he avoids decisions that rely on mood. He doesn’t chase applause or let outrage dictate direction. When Amazon is criticised, he doesn’t rush to defend; he listens, measures, and adapts. That emotional distance gives him control. It allows him to see clearly when others react impulsively. In an age of outrage and instant feedback, Bezos reminds us that logic compounds faster than emotion.

    The lesson: Calm is a superpower. When everyone else is loud, the quiet thinker sees furthest.

    Final thought

    Jeff Bezos may not inspire memes or headlines the way Musk or Trump does, but his power lies in something rarer: disciplined obsession. He’s proof that the future doesn’t belong to the loudest, the boldest, or even the smartest. It belongs to those who can stay fixated on what matters long enough to make it inevitable.

    How to Be Unshakeable Even When You’re Unliked: Trump’s Strange Superpower

    Cornelius NdubuisiLeave a comment

    Love him or loathe him, Donald Trump might be one of the most unshakeable figures of our time. He’s been impeached twice, banned from social media, sued, mocked, arrested, fact-checked, and written off more times than any public figure should survive and yet, somehow, he’s still standing and commanding attention.

    Trump’s story is less about politics and more about psychology and a strange study in resilience and defiance. His power doesn’t come from never being hit. On the contrary, it comes from never staying down no matter the hits.

    He may not be everybody’s favourite person, but whatever he’s doing is working and deserves a deeper look.

    Here are five strange but undeniable lessons from his playbook on how to stay standing when the world would rather see you fall.

    1. Thick skin is a strategic asset

    Most people think of thick skin as a personality trait. For Trump, it’s a business model. He has turned criticism into background noise he no longer hears. The insults, headlines, and late-night jokes which would dampen any other person’s spirit, feed him. Every attack for him is proof that he’s still relevant.

    The lesson: If you let public opinion dictate your energy, you’ll burn out before you ever break through. The ability to stay unbothered, or at least appear to, is a competitive edge in an age where everyone’s emotions are on display.

    2. The secret to staying relevant? Never stop talking

    When most people retreat after backlash, Trump doubles down. He posts, he calls, he rallies, he repeats. His noise drowns out silence and that’s the point. Relevance, in his world, belongs to whoever keeps the microphone.

    The lesson: Visibility beats perfection. You don’t stay in control by waiting for the storm to pass. You stay in control by being the loudest voice through it.

    3. Control the room by never conceding it.

    Trump doesn’t just occupy whatever space he finds himself, he dominates it. Whether in debates, boardrooms, or social media, he refuses to give up control of the frame. If he’s cornered, he reframes the corner. If he’s wrong, he changes the subject until he isn’t.

    The lesson: In communication, control isn’t about truth but about direction. Whoever sets the narrative leads the room. You don’t need to win every argument but you need to control what’s being argued about.

    4. Never play on someone else’s stage

    Trump built his own stage, literally and figuratively. He used television to shape his image, social media to bypass gatekeepers, and rallies to turn audiences into armies. When platforms banned him, he built new ones. When critics mocked him, he made the mockery part of the show.

    The lesson: If you rely on borrowed platforms, you’ll always be one edit away from erasure. Build your own channels, own your message, and make your audience come to you.

    5. Own your contradictions before someone else weaponises them.

    Trump’s contradictions are public record: billionaire populist, rule-breaker who loves order, businessman and showman. Yet what keeps them from destroying him is that he rarely hides them. He exaggerates them first.

    The lesson: The best defense is preemptive honesty. When you name your flaws before others do, you rob them of their sting. Vulnerability, handled with audacity, becomes armor.

    Final thought

    Donald Trump may never win a popularity contest, but he’s mastered something more powerful: staying visible, relevant, and defiant in a world built to cancel, correct, and control. His strange superpower isn’t just confidence but endurance. You don’t have to admire his politics to learn from his persistence. Because in a world quick to judge, those who survive aren’t always the most loved, just the least shaken.

    The Power of Playing the Long Game Like Jensen Huang

    Cornelius NdubuisiLeave a comment

    In a world obsessed with overnight success, Jensen Huang is a quiet rebellion. While most CEOs chase quarterly wins, the NVIDIA founder built an empire by betting on a future no one else could see and waiting long enough for it to arrive.

    His story is not one of fast fame or lucky breaks but a masterclass in patience, conviction, and the power of playing the long game.

    When Huang co-founded NVIDIA in 1993, the world didn’t care much about graphics processors. Computers were still crawling toward speed and color; the idea of using GPUs for more than gaming sounded absurd.

    Yet Huang saw something everyone else missed, that the same chips that made video games beautiful could also make artificial intelligence possible. It took decades for the rest of the world to catch up. And in that journey lie a few powers worth paying attention to.

    That’s the first lesson: playing the long game begins with seeing beyond the moment. Huang didn’t build for the present but for the inevitable. When others optimized for short-term profit, he invested in research that wouldn’t pay off for twenty years. It’s a mindset that separates those who make noise from those who make history. But foresight alone isn’t enough. Long games are grueling. They require the kind of stamina that survives failure after failure without losing faith. NVIDIA nearly went bankrupt multiple times. Its early chips were expensive, hard to market, and misunderstood. Yet Huang refused to fold. He kept showing up, refining, rebuilding, reinvesting. His leadership wasn’t defined by perfection, but by endurance.

    That’s the second lesson: patience is not passive. It’s active resilience. Huang once said that “our company is 30 years in the making, and every day felt like day one.” The long game isn’t about waiting idly for your time to come. It’s about working with urgency today for results that may not come for years. It’s the discipline to believe in something long enough for it to mature. By 2006, NVIDIA released CUDA, a software platform that let developers use GPUs for computing beyond graphics, a radical idea at the time. It wasn’t immediately celebrated. In fact, many dismissed it. But that innovation became the foundation of today’s AI revolution. Two decades later, the chips NVIDIA built for gamers now power the world’s largest data centers, AI models, and autonomous systems.

    The third lesson? The long game rewards those who prepare for the future before it’s fashionable. Visionaries like Huang don’t chase trends; they create them. He once said, “We’re always running toward where the ball is going, not where it is.” That’s how long-term thinkers operate; they invest in the invisible. And here’s the irony: while everyone else burns out chasing speed, the slow and steady ultimately become unstoppable.

    NVIDIA’s valuation soared past a trillion dollars, not because Huang sprinted, but because he persisted. He built a foundation strong enough to outlast hype cycles.

    There’s something deeply human about that kind of endurance. We live in a culture of instant validation where people want virality more than vision, applause more than progress.

    Jensen Huang’s story reminds us that great things take time, and that time itself can be your biggest competitive advantage if you use it wisely.In the end, playing the long game is about willing the future into existence. It’s about holding your vision steady while the world wavers.

    Huang proved that when you align relentless work with relentless patience, the world eventually catches up to you.

    So whether you’re building a business, a career, or a dream, remember Jensen Huang: the man who built the future by refusing to rush it. Because in a world chasing shortcuts, the real power lies in endurance and in the courage to keep playing long after everyone else stops.