People Who Are Not Successful At What They Are Doing Missed The Point-Larry Izamoje

I was working at DBN Television. I was at DBN and something led to another, and I felt it was time to do something for myself.
That was how the whole idea of Brila came up.
At times, they say some disappointments are good in life because they cause you to have your appointment. So it was that
disappointment that gave me my appointment at the Corporate Affairs Commission to register Brila. The only names that came to
my mind were ‘Labri’ and ‘Brila’: my name first, that of my wife second, or my wife first and mine second. At the end of the day,
we agreed that it should be Brila. It sounded better: it honoured the woman, and, again, I needed her support at that time to do
what I wanted to do. So and we named it Brila.
At DBN, I was manager, sports; at Concord, I was deputy group sports editor; at The Mail, I was sports editor. The only thing I had
done all my life was sports, so it couldn’t have been Brila Accounting or Brila Aviation. It had to be Brila Sports. So that was how
we took off.
And because one hurriedly left DBN, there was no money really to start the business. My elder brother, who had advised me at that
time not to leave DBN, heard I eventually left and gave me thirty five thousand naira (N35,000). With that, I was able to rent a small
office at Ogba; I got to Ikeja, bought a second-hand typewriter, which I still keep at home till date for my children to see. I owned a
second-hand Volkswagen Beetle at that time with which I did kabukabu [unofficial taxi]. So the Beetle was also there to add to
whatever was left. I bought a second-hand table, a second-hand chair, a second-hand typewriter, and I remember somebody moved
out of that office. So it was not a brand new building; you may want to call it jokingly a second-hand building or second-hand
office.
So that was how we took off, but one was driven by the passion for sports and the fact that I had taken a decision which so many
had said, “Don’t take.” I remember a friend of mine telling me at that time, “You have a good job; why leave and go into
uncertainty?” But I believed that at that time, even as a worker, I had discovered my own grace, a different way of packaging sports
programmes, talking sports. So that was how the business started. And, of course, a small video club was set up opposite NIJ
[Nigerian Institute of Journalism], Ogba-Ijaiye, and N10 per video was how we were doing it. In a month, we made a turnover less
than N10,000. It was all fun; it was joy; it was interesting.
Some work so hard but they don’t move ahead. Does success have to do with luck?
I think people who are not successful at what they are doing missed the point. Everything I’ve been telling you is about locating
where your potentialities lie. If you want to achieve success, it’s simple: you must look at where you have the greatest passion. So
if you are doing something and you don’t have the passion for it, quit. There are no two ways about it. You may be lucky to
succeed temporarily but it will not be everlasting; it will not even become a legacy. So you must do that thing that you’re
passionate about. If you’re not passionate about it, no way.
So it’s about looking at where you have your passion and you key into it. When you do what you are passionate about, you don’t
waste energy. That’s why most Americans would tell you they don’t work hard; they only work smart. That explains why a truck
pusher would sweat greatly pushing his truck from Victoria Island to Ikeja and at the end of the day, he would not get more than
N1,000 or N2,000. But for just one idea that you give to somebody, you are made a millionaire. It’s all about thinking, being
passionate about something, knowing how to go about it, and going about it the right way, and what it takes to take you to the next
level.
What was the turning point in your life?
At times I tell people it was when I started the programme on OGBC [Ogun State Broadcasting Corporation, Abeokuta]. But looking
back, I would rather say the turning point was the dislocation that happened at DBN. People are thrown into their own pit and from
there they get the Joseph’s experience: come out of it and forever they are successful. But if we leave that and say let’s take the
one we can relate to: in 1993, after we started Brila Sports in Ogba, there was a need to start a programme on radio. I went to
OGBC and they told me it’s an FM station, and they would not take any person whose programme involved much talking. I said to
them: “I would talk and play music. Yours is an FM station but you don’t have a sports programme in the morning, and in the
morning, people like to listen to sports.” They told me, “This thing you’re talking about would not work.” I made them understand
that I was going to buy airtime and I was going to pay. At the end of the day, they set up a committee for me, and I convinced the
committee by doing a demo. Eventually they allowed me to do that programme. It was then called Global Sports.
I did it for six months without a sponsor; paid my passage every morning from Lagos to Abeokuta, got the stories myself, did all the
editing of things I would do, bought all my materials. And after six months, Cadbury Nigeria Plc took over the programme, and it
was while Cadbury was doing the Saturday edition that we then called Bournvita Global Sports that Nigeria qualified for the 1994
World Cup [for the first time]. Someone in Cadbury told me, “Why don’t you look at a World Cup programme for us?” I said, “Let’s
see what we can come up with.” I wrote to the organizers of the World Cup in the USA and they were willing to send me releases.
Those were not the days of the e-mails. So they were willing to send the releases to me, post them to me regularly. And I talked
to my elder brother in the UK, who is always willing to assist. He was willing to get me books on the World Cup. In fact, one of
them was the book by Ian Robson, which is still the first by the left on my bookshelf. That shelf has become a small museum now.
So with that book, we got everything about the World Cup up to 1994, and with the things America was sending to us, we knew
how they were planning for it and what and what they were doing. And with that, we did a World Cup programme and it was a hit.
In fact, that was what God really used, showing that his hand was on us, and still on us.
What are the ingredients for success?
John Maxwell, a motivational speaker, says, “Man, discover yourself.” So the first thing you require to succeed in life is to discover
yourself. A lot of people don’t know themselves. There’s a difference between having a job and having the job or doing a job and
doing the job. You must discover yourself: there is what we call the learning process. If you are travelling from Lagos to Kaduna,
there’s no way you would not stop and re-fuel your car. So while you are going to your destination, yes you may find yourself stray
to something that is not right. It’s okay. That’s why all roads are not smooth; they have bumps. But you must come out of it. So
the same thing is required: discover yourself. And in discovering yourself, you must find out that thing you are happy doing. I told
you that even God was happy about creation. That was why the Bible says: “And He looked at it and it was good.” So God himself
was happy about it, if not, nobody would have written it was good for us. He was happy about it. So you must be happy about what
you are doing. So once you’re able to discover yourself, you know the area where God has given you your strength. If you’re not
given the strength to be a computer analyst and you go there, you’ll just kill yourself. So if that is where God has put you, just fly
with it.
Create your USP - your Unique Selling Proposition. That is your relevance within that area. You can be original in an already
saturated field. We did not start talking sports, but what we tried to do when we came was that we saw how people who were
doing it before us did it. Yes, in the morning, sports programmes were really not there on FM stations, and so we started that on
OGBC; and we saw that when we started it, all the private radio stations around OGBC started the same thing, by doing morning
programmes on sports. Then we said, “How do we present our own differently?” There’s no use presenting it in a dull, drab,
uninspiring manner. You must lace it with some graphics. Since it is not television where people can see the action, they must
“see” it through your voice. So from the way you’re screaming about it, talking about it, people must get excited. I remember
someone spoke to me in the days when Airtel was called Econet. He said his driver put on the radio at 8 a.m. and he thought
Nigeria was playing a match at 8 a.m. That’s the kind of passion that we bring into it.
So you must have your Unique Selling Proposition, even in your place of work. What is that thing that differentiates you? In your
family, what is that thing that differentiates you? In your church, what is that thing that differentiates you? In that association, what
is that thing that differentiates you? There must be a reason when you step into any place for people to say he has brought
something new to the table. You must mark yourself out, stand out, be different from the crowd.
Your advice to the younger ones
You must be ready to take the punch. There’s no lift to success; you must take the stairs. And you find out that it’s only in the
dictionary that success comes before work. The reality is that you must work. I quote Ken Norton, a great boxer in those days:
“Nobody became a world champion without taking the punch.” ....