Ideas rule the world, but then who rules ideas?

With great passion I presented my topic on Mentoring at Henry Alex-Dduyemi Memorial Secondary School, Ile-Ife, Osun State, Nigeria. I ran out of Lagos to meet the meeting time only to be told that the meeting time had been changed to the next day, but then I had to wait patiently. I was not delivering my subject with passion, because the tutorial sounded like a good subject, it was because of the things I thought before coming.

1. Why people have said that ideas rule the world

The popular saying has always been that ideas rule the world, but that is an obvious statement. Everything you see around you became tangible because it was an idea in someone’s mind. Race and gender equality in America was the dream and message of the great Martin Luther King; whenever he wears/wears Giorgio Armani, Christian Dior, Mercedes, Chanchagi airlines or Dangote products; he remembers that you are fulfilling and living on behalf of someone, his dream and his passion. We like and operate in the world created by other people’s ideas. When you use Microsoft products, you live within the confines of Bill Gates’ dream. Therefore, it is an understatement to say that ideas rule the world; it is already the driving force that will define society and systems in nation building, policy making, and business practices, even for generations to come.

2. Who are the people who govern the ideas?

Those who govern ideas are called mentors; they propagate lifestyles, business models and principles. Therefore, mentors are essentially neutral: there are good and bad mentors. It was a matter of debate to choose TIME magazine’s man of the year in 1939, but Adolf Hitler was given as the man who has influenced the world that year. This award was not given to Winston Churchill, the man who ended the world war; it was given to the man who started it. It might be easy to say that he lost, having caused more pain and loss of life, but in doing so he changed everything, he was just spreading a vision that charmed the German masses. Therefore, I tasked them with questioning and defining their values, which should inform their choice of mentors. Well what am I saying? Ideas are essentially neutral, they respond to the values, thoughts, perception and intention of those who originated them.

3. PC/TV neutrality and influence

However, I discovered that there was no debate in the decision compiled by a population survey conducted by a popular media station on who was the most influential person of the last century: it was given to television. I decided to include television as the most influential mentor on my list (a unique medium that has propagated ideas, taught and developed lifestyles, and affected civilization in all its ramifications). TV/PC is where the world’s shapers meet the casts; the consumer (the email checker, the movie addict, the e-book addict, the jukebox weirdo, and the fun-loving) are influenced by the creators (producers, designers, readers, multimedia architects , psychometric analysts and process engineers) . Whether you will influence the world or be influenced will depend on your positioning around these media.

4. Mentors are force multipliers

I also continued to stress the importance of mentoring to achieve stated goals; Alexander the Great became king at the age of 20 and within three years he had already conquered the known world at that time. Why? He was under the tutelage of a man named Aristotle, who in turn was intensely instructed by Plato himself. If Alexander achieved so much in such short years, it was because he drew on the knowledge of the two great philosophers. Isaac Newton famously said, “People have said that I see beyond my generation, but if I have really seen ahead, it is because I have stood on the shoulders of men who have gone before me.” Those who peaked and did so at a very young age did so because they started early, learning, practicing and delivering when the opportunity presented itself.

5. Ideas, mentors and association

I couldn’t leave without telling them about the associations. Those who walk with the wise, even if the person is foolish; he will be counted wise, that is good news. The other news is that no matter how brilliant you are, if you don’t hone your skills with like-minded people, you’ll soon fall apart. An ancient Chinese proverb goes on to say that if you don’t understand a man, he looks at his friends, you will even understand his future.