I spoke on the sub-theme of 'Academic Excellence and Personal Development'. Think Beyond the Box is the theme of the annual youth empowerment event organized by the young NGO, Standing Tall Initiatives. It was big privilege visiting Lagos again to grace the occasion. September brought a lot of great opportunities too. A great thanks to STI for hosting me in their 3rd edition seminar. I thought to share some excerpts. I presented on the area of personal development and academic excellence. Trust me, personal development is a word that encompasses every form of development in the world. Because people make things, and not the other way around, anything can be 'developed' if only the 'person' is developed. Human resource development has always been a great passion, especially learning and development and organizational development. I provided 4 forms of thinking. They included Conforming/Comprehensive thinking, critical thinking, design thinking and strategic thinking. These four are relevant at different stages of development. On the pillars of the Z-A strategic thinking, I proposed 5 pillars. The feedback after the seminar has been amazing. My words to you are simple, "EVERY EMPLOYEE/PERSON THAT SEES HIS FUTURE IN YOU WILL TAKE YOU INTO THE FUTURE". Your people make you and development makes your people.