 Earlier to promote the show I had posted my thoughts on academic and non-academic education asking what it means and why is it seemingly more important than going to school because in my opinion a lot of people have degrees they don't use to earn a living I'm going to use myself as an example because as a product design graduate I've never actually worked as a product designer I then got a response from one of our viewers who had a contrary point of view I'm going to read his message Good morning Farron, I beg to disagree slightly The school and degree you earn prepares you for whatever you want to do in future and not necessarily your degree e.g. some universities will accept a first class mathematics degree to read law because of some analytical components of maths rather than figures you can tell that this viewer is very academic and super intelligent and I've been told to ask my guests if this is correct or not but before I do this, let me introduce her Ifei Waigodalo is an accounting graduate from the University of Nigeria, Unzuka she's a self-driven entrepreneur with over 35 years experience within the interior design furniture manufacturing and retail and affiliated industries She was co-founder of Design Options and is currently the CEO and founder of DO2 Designs Limited Ifei Waigodalo is also the immediate past chairman of the Board of Trustees of Women in Management, Business and Public Service, Wimbis and sits on the Board of Trustees of the Interior Designers Association of Nigeria, Aidan Welcome Ifei Waigodalo Thank you Farron It's really quite cool to have you here I'm also a founder and one of the founders of Wimbis, not just the past chair True, yes, yes and that Ifei Waigodalo is awesome and amazing and I'm just so happy that you're here with us today So the first thing I want to ask you is what does academic and non-academic, what does academic education mean first? Okay, academic education is what you're taught in schools basically, whether it's primary school, nursery school, so your formal education And then non-academic education Non-academic education is what you're typically not taught in schools unconventional, it's unconventional For me, it's what you're taught, what you learn at home and what you learn pretty much from your family and your social network So that tends to lend to your cognitive skills your social skills, your emotional skills and it sort of forms the foundation of who you really become That's what it means to me Okay, that actually makes a lot of sense So I'm going to take you back to the question that I was asked about I'm going to read parts of it again The school and degree you earn prepares you for whatever you want to do in future and not necessarily your degree, EG University will accept the first-class degree in a certain subject for another subject Because this was in response to me saying academic education is not necessarily the most important thing Non-academic education is, so what are your viewpoints? On what? On what the viewer has said about the degrees being more important Oh, definitely not I'll tell you why First of all, a lot of Nigerians sometimes are challenged with the English language which is our lingua franca And that is because you find that those who are most challenged they learn English as a second language I learned English as my first language at home I learned my native language as my second language So you see that foundation, what you learn at home There's this famous thing I have that drives my husband up the wall Children live what they learn and they learn what they live So what you learn at home is what really defines you Now, I'm not saying that academic education is not important but you'll find that with some of the banks when they take you on, they'll take an English graduate and they'll just train you for what they need you to do So technically, that course that you study I'm an accountant and now I've been manufacturing furniture all my life 35 years and counting So it's not the education What I learned in school was for me Okay, let me take it a little way back I knew when I was much younger that I was going to go into business So for me, accounting was that foundation Why did I go into business? Both my parents were in business So the education for me in university particularly education teaches you the consequences of your action So it's not so much about learning There are two types Let me break it down a little further So if you're an engineer, obviously you have to study engineering You can't learn it as a course So for these strict skills that you need to carry out a job, you must be properly educated But in the balance, even with that education if you don't have the foundation of your non-academic education Yes, you might be a very good engineer but you may not go far because your interaction with people what I call your socio-emotional skills your person skills that is actually what takes you a lot further So obviously a pilot must learn how to fly a plane but for me there's a lot more to life than that So it's a balance That really does make sense So let's take it back a little How has non-academic education impacted you How did it impact you as a youth and how has it influenced your leadership style today? Okay, how did it impact me as a youth? My non-academic education, I'll give one example When I was in my late teens, early 20s when there was a situation I would step back and my father would say to me he kept saying to me, if you're a leader you're a leader So he instilled in me the fact that I was a leader and I said, no daddy, I'm not If there's somebody else to step in I won't but if there's nobody then I'll take charge So he said, no, my daughter you're a leader So the fact that I have so I learned my leadership skills from home I didn't learn them in an institution Okay, and then, sorry, second part of the question How has it influenced your leadership style? Well, I just answered that and how it influenced me as a young person that was it as well So I'm the first child of my parents I'm the first grandchild on both sides of my family So my mother instilled in me the sense of responsibility that goes with that So that's where the leadership comes from So I didn't learn any leadership skills in school formally Okay, so for younger people who may be watching can you give me some examples of non-academic education that we all need in life? Non-academic education as they say charity begins at home So non-academic education when you're younger it comes from your parents I'm trying to think of a strict example it's just in the way you're brought up Okay, I'll give an example I have a daughter even though she's an only child when her cousins or her young friends when she was five years old four years old came to visit anyone who was younger than her I made her understand that she was responsible for that person So even though she's one of the youngest in the family, in the extended family she has a sense of responsibility and she got older I made her realize that ultimately she's responsible for her dad and I the older she got So that's an example responsibility is one of the things you teach You don't really teach it you live it and they imbibe it Thinking of another example of non-academic, well leadership is another example Empathy Empathy is very important for leadership So empathy is another example of what you can learn from home You watch your parents Okay I'll touch on something else later But you watch your parents, you watch your family you watch your village and you see how do we interact If there's a loss What is their reaction? If somebody is in need, what is their reaction? And it would be very difficult for you to have lived this all your life and then come out and you're an extremely selfish person And for leaders for me leadership, the qualities of leadership, one of them is empathy of course, selflessness You put others before yourself Those are the kind of lessons non-academic lessons that will help you And most importantly in both forms of education you need to learn the consequences of your action. Oh, I'm sorry I forgot one very important one, communication If you notice, particularly now with the mobile phones and all the gadgets devices, you know you find now the young ones are just constantly like this So I remember years ago when somebody said to me, wow I just came out of a room and there were four young people there and they were all talking to each other So that social interaction is being eroded by these devices. Communication is very important One of the things I struggle with in my business you send emails, they see it they don't respond you speak to them, they stand and they look at you When we were younger you wouldn't get away with that How do you teach, how was it taught in those days to communicate? Let's talk about my days because I can talk about my days We're not allowed to talk about it anymore they call it child abuse but your mother asked you a question she asked you a second time and you're standing and looking at her I'm sure you can imagine what would happen there She owes you You say it, let me not be the one to say it but you know, but now it's not allowed it's not allowed and then we're complaining and wondering what's going wrong with our children I'm not saying we must smack but there have to be consequences to your actions a lot of things that are going wrong even in our country human beings need to know that there's a consequence to every action and for me that is actually both formal and informal education teach The reason why I'm speechless is because the world we live in today there are no consequences for a lot of the actions that people take but then everybody is gong ho about you have to get a first class you have to get an A you have to be the best in school anymore, not as much as they were in our days right now because like in my day it was all the formal skills formal education, accountancy engineering, law, medicine that was it but now there's such a wide variety of careers there's so many options so it's not about yes, our parents still want us to do well what it is, I think that parents and generally people want you to apply yourself so if you've done your best and your best is a D it is what it is but if I know and I tell my because I employ over 150 people and I tell my, especially my PAs they laugh and I say to them that it's when you don't apply yourself that I get upset I need help, I will help you you can ask for help, people don't even know how to ask for help anymore I don't know the answer and instead I run away and I hide and I hope that when I hide it goes away and it never does it won't go away the problem will remain there until you come and fix it that's another thing you learn from non-academic so is all of this the same so teaching all these non-academic skills is it the same as mentorship in a manner of speaking now this mentorship thing is something I love I've mentored so many people and I'd like to think that when I was growing up mentorship and mentor, the word mentor has always been there but it wasn't such a thing as it is now the reason we're relying a lot on mentors for non-academic education is because a lot of us who are relying didn't get that education from whom so we're almost replacing it with mentorship but there are those of us like myself who got solid, I got a solid non-academic education but I have still had a few mentors who for me they are people who I respect and people who I would like to mention my life but I need to acquire more knowledge from so they go hand in hand, I wouldn't say once you have a strong non-academic education you don't need mentorship but mentorship for me like I said I've mentored a lot of people there's formal mentorship, I've mentored with a few organizations I wouldn't mention but I can mention Wimbis, I've been a Wimbis mentor but there's also informal mentorship being around that person and just learning from that person and in my own case particularly when I tell my story I talk about, God knows hundreds of young people who have gone through my stable as I call it in my business and all of them are running successful businesses now a lot of them entrepreneurs and I keep getting the same thing Mrs. I the lessons I learned from you they have helped me in my business personal life, they've helped me in relationships because I think deep down I'm a teacher really some of you may know what I'm talking about but I'm a teacher and so that's informal mentorship so you see what I mean so there's that non-academic education that even my staff who I'm paying are getting from me or from the environment I guess that's what makes a good leader so that makes a lot of sense so if you were going to if you were speaking to a group of under 30 year olds for example what are the five lessons you would tell them three or five I was just going to say three or five so you would tell them about the importance of non-academic education I'll start with what just happened now as children I remember all your mother has to do is give you one look and you know what she's saying so when you said five I gave you that look and you caught it that's non-academic, you see what I mean it's not taught in schools so let me try and marshal my thoughts I would say curiosity if you're not curious they say curiosity killed the cats but information made her fat so knowledge you have to be thirsty for knowledge I find that people who want to learn and people who don't want to learn in the same environment they're not going to learn they just don't want to I would say for oh gosh I've lost my dream of thought so curiosity knowledge self development develop yourselves so even as I am now I'm still learning I remember when the computer came out in fact when I was in university that's when the computer came out it was in a room as big as this studio that was a computer does the computer when you were in university? a room was the computer sorry FYI I'm asking this question because she's over 60 just in case you didn't know so we left my faculty was in Inugu and there was the University of Sokka so we left and went to Sokka and we just looked at the computer and we left and that was computer education so now I'm working with iPads I'm working with tiny bits of things so I've had to learn and develop myself even for my business to keep ahead of the trends so curiosity knowledge self development empathy I think is one of the things you just need a knife I think empathy is a harder one to grasp because not a lot of people even understand what empathy means so how do you learn it? it's non-academic you know what they say surround yourself with the right sort of people so if you see a leader you choose your mentors they don't choose you you choose a leader and what they stand for then you will learn from them this has been really really good and as always we never have enough time and we've already run out of time this has been long coming yes it has so I'm really glad we did this and I'm glad we talked about this particular topic because I think a lot of people need to understand that there's a balance in education there's the formal one and there's the informal one so thank you so much thank you very much it's been pretty cool I'm so glad to have you here thank you and welcome I love your show so we've come to the end and John Helen and myself are going to very very quickly round off the show as usual so please stay tuned for a few more minutes thank you for watching and see you in a few minutes