Stedman Graham Conference: The Nine-Step Plan
Feb 13, 2014 - 19:00 @ TIFF Bell Lightbox
Oprah Winfrey and Stedman Graham
He’s best known as Oprah Winfrey’s longtime boyfriend, by Stedman Graham
makes it clear he is his own man and that he has achieved his own success
through hard work, dedication and perseverance.
Stedman emerged from a difficult childhood and took control of things
and is now CEO of S. Graham & Associates, a management and marketing
consulting firm that specializes in the corporate and educational markets. Stedman says has a “burning desire” to help
others find success as he has. And to
that end, Graham is appearing as part of the Toronto Black Film Festival, as
guest lecturer on his Make It Big: Nine Steps to Success programme. I caught up with Graham in Toronto.
You are a high achiever, so what makes you different from the rest of
us?
I don’t feel I’m
any different. I understand there is a process for success. I work very hard to
teach other people the process I have learned through my own experiences. I work very hard to help people to think differently
about themselves and how to develop an identify for themselves which is the
foundation for growing and developing and achieving and it’s also the
foundation for being able to take information and make it relevant to who you
are as a person. So you can create
anything that you want. The same process
I learned is the same process anyone else can learn and if they learn it, they
can empower themselves and achieve whatever they want.
But it doesn’t seem as though you’ve encountered failure.
I grew up with two
disabled brothers in my family so I grew up with low self-esteem and a lack of
confidence in myself. That in itself was
an accomplishment to get through that mentally.
When you’re teased every day and you fight all the time, when you had to
fight because of your brothers and the shame that you have in your family, and
you also have to deal with the race base consciousness which is what I had, I
was always focussed on race, so I had to overcome a lot of internal things that
people wouldn’t understand unless they’re in the situation. It was tough for me
and I got through it and am able to realise that determination and perseverance
that I had to have to survive that and
then be able to take that and help other people through their own obstacles.
So you codified it in Make It Big: 9 Steps to Success.
I have a burning
desire to get other people to find out what I found out for myself which is how
to develop quality in your own life and how not to be defined by labels and how
to be able to take your power back and move from a follower to a leader based
what you think and how to organise your life around information as opposed to
going to school and having the teacher tell you how to memorise and take tests
and information and two weeks later you forget.
You come out with a degree and you can’t get a job.
So what can we do?
Now in the 21st
job you have to be an owner of your own development, create your own lifelong
learner and self-direct your life. You’ll live to be 100. They’re keeping us alive a long time now, so
we have to work and take care of ourselves. There is nothing guaranteed today,
there is nothing that’s been as tough ever before in the history of our culture
and world because it is so complex. It’s
great opportunity for all of us. We have
access to the world but we don’t have the navigational skills oftentimes to be
able to understand how to deal with the global market place today or that you
can create your own or create a future.
Those skills haven’t been taught yet.
We just have memorization skills and degree skills and someone didn’t
teach us how to apply them to the job and nobody can get a job. The factories are closed.
Why don’t they teach these survival skills in schools?
we ‘re trying to
move more into a career oriented educational system and we just haven’t been
able to make that transition because we are so hard wired into the old way of
doing things. The world has
changed. You have to learn to navigate
it and commit to lifelong learning.
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