Good morning. My name is Patrick Njoroge and I've got to know a few of you. But I like it's interesting when you guys tell me who you are. Most of you just tell me one name, you know. Hi, I'm Arnold. Hi, I'm Sean. Hi, I'm Colin. When I say who I am, I'll generally say I'm Patrick Njoroge. I'll use both my names, right? It's an interesting change in our culture that now we are much more relaxed and we just say, 'Hey, I'm so and so.' Yeah, but please don't call me, 'Hey, dude.' You know, that doesn't quite cut it. So you can call me Patrick, you can call me Patrick Njoroge, you can call me governor, but don't say 'hey you.' So now we've set the ground rules. You probably have seen my name before somewhere. I think most of you have seen it in the library. If you look at the back of the library, there's a board there and there are names and you'll see my name at 1978. So, it shows I was here in 1978. And then also you've seen it in your currency. I don't know if you guys do M-Pesa or money. Do you have cash? Cash money. So, in the cash money, hope is not 50. You're 50. Anyway, even the 50, my name is somewhere in there or actually my signature, my name. Anyway, so now you know me. The connection with you is less from the money side and more from the board side because I'm a Strathmoreian. As we say, I'm an old boy. I don't know what your teachers told you about me but I think the distinction I really like, the quality if I want to show off, right, if I want to show off, say I'm a Strathmore old boy and that's it. It's the way some people say, you know, I went to... I'm so and so. I'm this and you should know that because it's like my father is the king. So just if you know that I'm so and so, that's it. So for me, for most of my professional career, saying I'm a Strathmoreian was a source of great pride. And I hope for you it will be the same, that you can say years from now, you know, I'm a Strathmore old boy. Now here now you change words, you call it alumni and things like that, you know, whatever it is, it means you have gone through Strathmore and you are Strathmore finished product. You came in unfinished, you moved on. But anyway, so you are imbued with this Strathmore spirit. So I was here, as I said, in 1978, almost 50 years ago. I'm not going to ask where you are 50 years ago, you know. Let's leave it. Maybe even your own parents. Some of you, your own parents may not have been born then, but it's okay. It's not an issue, right? But I said that more to ask you, where will you be in 15 years, in 50 years from now? Where will you be? Is that something that worries you from a day-to-day basis? I hope not. I hope it's not something. But it will happen. In the same way when I was here sitting in this common room and not aware that 50 years down the road, almost 50, 47, I would have done certain things professionally that I'm proud of, some I've had successes, I've had failures. You look back and you say, you know, it's a life well spent. I'm proud of what I've become. So I ask you, 15 years from now. Now you, 15 years looks like a long time. Why? Because you are what? You are 17, you're 18. So it's almost doubling your life, right? So 15 years from now, where will you be? You started on that journey. It's like a train that's leaving the station, right? So it really is a station and there all those... I don't know, you've seen it even in the movies, you have all those tracks. You can see it even here at the train station, Nairobi train station, you have all those tracks. If you put the train, that's when it can change, right, from one track to the next and you see this thing moving and then the next thing you know it's on its way to Kisumu. But once it's committed going to Kisumu, it will just continue towards Kisumu. But it started from the same platform as the one that was going to Mombasa. They changed the tracks here, there, whatever, and then boom, it's going. What happened there? You get the point. So this is the time that you are changing the tracks. This is the time you commit yourself and actually determine where you're going to end up. Is it in Kisumu? Is it in Mombasa? Is it in... once you decide, it's so difficult to come back, you understand? Once the train is committed to go to Kisumu and then you realize, oh, I was going to Mombasa. You know, it's going to be hard to stop the train, get back. You understand? It's now when it's easier to change destination. Choosing the destination. And so I ask you, so what will push you to what you're going to be 15 years from now? 50 years from now. It begins today. It begins in what you have been taught. It begins in the things that you have made your own. Just like myself. We'll talk about those things in a minute. I think there are maybe three things that most of you think about, you know, what will... where will I be in 15 years, right? So okay, fine, I have all these talents, you know, I'm very good in math, I love math, or I'm very good in geography, or I'm very good in... something wrong with the microphone. I'm very good in, let's say, computing. So my point to you, talents are something. But talents are not enough. And we'll talk about that in a minute. But you have that. You have to accept that you have certain talents, certain things that God gave you. There's certain facilities. Now, it's true. We generally see quite often the little things like basketball. I'm a better basketball player than you. Just as I came in, there's a young man who was walking out there with his tutor. The guy's taller than me. He's in form two, but he's taller than me. I said, 'Whoa, do you play basketball?' 'Cause I thought, you know, he's tall, therefore... he said, 'No, no, I know nothing about basketball.' Okay. So, I was a bit disappointed, you know, 'cause but who knows, in five years, in two years, he may be a very good basketball player. Only that he hasn't tested it out. You understand? But there are talents that you have. But there's something else that goes with it. Hard work. This is something that we need to talk a little more about. We'll come back to it. I said three things. One is talent, hard work, and the third one is lucky breaks. Life is not determined by just deterministic. So you push buttons and everything. There's always God has a certain way of... I want to say God has a sense of humor. So you're doing this and then suddenly you're knocked down by something. You think you are really going to improve in your basketball skills then you break your leg. You understand, and then you see something else. While you are training, I mean your leg is healing, you then discover that you are a very good chess player. So what we have, we have talents, we have hard work, we have lucky breaks. But you know, unfortunately, there are some things we do that kind of get us very excited, right? It's not talent, it's just something. You know how many of you have heard about the beef, the famous beef? Lift your hands. You all know what I'm talking about. Or maybe let's start the other way. Who doesn't know what I'm talking about when I say beef? Oh man. Okay. Okay. Okay. Keep. Okay. Fine. So, I need to do a bit more explanation. Okay. So there are these rappers, right? Now you all know what I'm talking about. Maybe your teachers are the ones that need to be told, right? But you understand now that you know what I'm talking about. You know very much about that beef. You can tell me exactly what happened, who did what to who, right? When, you know, who produced what track, etc., etc. And all that is it K dot or are you drakey or whatever it is, you know, you'll know the beef. My point in all this is at times we get excited about these things and I think it's okay, you know, that's all part of our culture and stuff, but you know, at times we can be drawn too much into those things. I think it's okay to listen to understand and all those, but you know, if it takes you away from your main point of focus, your study, etc., then we have a problem. That to me is the more fundamental issue. Now of course there's also the other thing which is, you know, all that rapping etc., you know, it's all gangster vibes, right? You know what I'm talking about, right? And I want to have this gangster vibes and if you see me on Saturday, you don't have that sort of sagging, you know, gangster sagging. My point is we can spend time and effort on the wrong things that won't take you where you want to be. It's probably taking you around in circles. At the end of all that, then what? So proportionality meaning you need to put only that amount of time that is needed in those things for your entertainment, etc. But that is not what your talent, that's not where your talents are. Are we clear about that? The issue I would want to raise is that first, your talents, they are not on the surface, right, that you can say, oh, you know, I have this talent, I'm very good in math. If you asked me years ago when I was here, 'So where will you be in 50 years? Will you be the governor of the central bank? Do you want to do that or whatever?' I wouldn't know. You understand? It's not that I could tell you that I had those talents that would lead me to that. But what it is is those talents are hidden quite a lot and it takes time for them to come up. You need to polish them, right? I'll give you an example. We can move away from the rapping world. We can talk to most of you know about the Beatles, right? You've heard about them, right? And there are these two guys. Well, there are four Beatles, and you have Paul McCartney and George Harrison. You know, they were in the same school, high school, and their music teacher didn't think that these guys were anything. Do you understand? They ended up being the Beatles, but their music teacher just didn't think they were anything. Actually, when I was in one of my most interesting things, one of the things I love is mathematics. I love math. I loved physics. But actually when I was in form one and two, the teachers didn't think I was anything. You understand? Somehow my talent in that space had not come out. I'm making the point that remember George Harrison and Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr and whoever the other guy is. Who is the fourth? There's George Harrison, there's Paul McCartney, there's Ringo Starr, and John Lennon. How would I forget John Lennon of all people? I mean these guys became the greatest musicians of their generation and it all started with the music that they... whatever it is. But when they were in school, their teachers didn't think they had any facility whatsoever with music, singing, etc. 'Cause they ended up putting a lot of work on it. Okay, that is the first point. So you need to push yourself. You need to push yourself. My second point on this is that there's no room for being average in the future. This thing of saying, 'Let's, you know, I'm okay, I'm average.' No, no, no, no, no. Please, Strathmore is not about being average. Strathmore taught us to be the best professionals and not be average. So if you leave here and you still think that you'll be okay being average. Like saying, 'Okay, I'm a C plus student or, God forbid, I'm a strong D.' Whatever the strength of the D is. It's ridiculous. You have talents to be an A. You have talents to ace everything. You have talents. My teacher in physics here, his name is Edwin Rodriguez. Rodriguez is somewhere on one of the pictures here. He taught me physics here. When he was in the university, his final exam, he was doing theoretical physics or whatever. His final exam was there were 10 questions. You're supposed to do five. Choose any five. And you have two and a half hours, half an hour for each question. You know what he did? He was very good. He did all 10 and then wrote at the top to the professor, 'Choose any five.' So that is what you're called to do. Now, I don't think I want you to actually do that. You know, do the five and do them well. You don't want to have issues, fireworks, fracas with the professors. Okay, I'm moving along here. So, it's this point of you do not want to think of yourself as you're making it. You're just average. No, you need to work hard. The second thing, the other thing I wanted to stress is this requires daily effort. You don't just wait until the exam time. No, no, it requires a lot of effort. But every single day, there is this guy, you probably know him. His name is Kobe Bryant. How many of you, let's put it the other way. How many of you know him? Know of him. Kobe Bryant. Okay. So everybody, good, good. So in my view now, I don't know, I don't watch NBA, right? In my view, the best NBA player of all time is Michael Jordan. Michael Jordan. Now I know there are other people now, you know, let's not even say the king this, king that, you know, I don't know, I'm not very excited about NBA, what the NBA has become. I actually think it's a mess, you know, the way the rules have changed and you can actually ram into somebody, you know, I mean it's violent, you know, anyway I leave that, we can discuss this. But the second in my view, the most talented player of all time is Kobe Bryant. He never really fulfilled that, but he had the talent. And he says, his point is, at the end of, and I'm quoting this, at the end of every day you look yourself in the mirror and ask yourself, 'Did I get better today? Did I get better today? How much better did I get today?' So are you getting better every day? That's the question. Small steps in everything, obviously in your studies, and even as for you as a person. So there you have best advice from one of the best models that we have in this regard. All right, then I want to say a few things. You see, there's also a problem of wasting your talent. Wasting your talent. And I think we waste our talent if we don't push it, meaning we don't study, we don't polish it, or at times we begin to take shortcuts. Now, one of the things that really shocked me when I came back after so many years is how people lie in their exams here. You know what I'm saying? Cheating. Cheating has become a sort of, at least I understand it looks like a... in some places they cheat in the exams like there's no tomorrow. It's institutionalized. I hope that's not something I can say of you guys. Please don't ruin the Strathmore image. I mean, we as alumni would have nothing, absolutely nothing to do with you if you broke that code, that honor code. Study and you'll get there. But you waste your talent also, as I say, if you take shortcuts. You know who is... we can argue about this, but you can tell me about the most talented midfielder of all time. Who is it? Paul Pogba. Most talented midfielder of all time. Now, we can argue, as I said, we can argue about that, right? I know there are some people who are into that little team. What is the guy in red? You know, I'm not going to say which team it is. The point I would make is Pogba, whether he is the greatest or not, he tried to take shortcuts. And today, now he's gone. I read an interview about him, or he is the one who was saying this, and he said, 'You know, Pogba is gone. There's no more of me.' Very sad. One of the most talented football players, midfielders, because of ended up in drugs, ended up in the gangster lifestyle. And today now he'll never recover from that disgrace. Anyway, so the point is you have a lot, and he's not the only one who made mistakes. Look at the talent of Michael Jackson, right? He also ended up dying because of drugs, abuse, etc., right? Or Whitney Houston. My point is having talent doesn't mean that doesn't tell you that you are not going to get into these things. You have to avoid all those things and it begins today. These things of cheating, these things of honor code, right, in the sense that if there's something... for instance, when I came in, they wanted to put the microphone here, right, but I had my wallet there. So just give it to one of you. Just hold this thing for me. I mean, why do I need to fear that you're going to go through it and check how much money or whatever? Do you understand? I have total, total faith in you. Total faith. And that's really what Strathmore is all about. I'm about to finish. We are getting there. You see, when I went through this institution, we were the most sought after graduates. So when you told an employer that you are an old boy, Strathmore old boy, that was enough. Why? Because they knew you had three things that were going for you. Three. One is that you are a very good professional, meaning you are serious in your work. If you are told to do X, you do X and not X minus epsilon. You do it completely. Secondly, you're a good person. You had a person who could be trusted. Like I said, you know, I give you, here's the thing, just hold on to it and when you give it back to me, I'm not going to check whether you took the money or whatever it is. I know everything is... I mean, it doesn't even occur to me, you understand. And the third thing is that you're good with others. You get along with others. You're a nice person. You take care of the others. You're interested in them, in building. You're a team player. That's what Strathmore is. That's what distinguishes you. But I want to finish by making two points. What is your greatest asset? Let's just see this. What is your greatest asset? You guys have assets, right? Don't you? Your books, your watch, your shoes. What is your greatest asset? Your brains. Okay, let me help you. Your greatest asset is your reputation. Your reputation. Guard it like nothing else. That is the only thing. When everything, when we strip you of all the labels and things like that, like you look at me, you strip my history. What remains is this is Patrick and he stands like this. His reputation is this. So you need to work on protecting your reputation. Don't mess with it. Don't mess with it. Even when people tell you, 'Oh, no, no, no. Let's try this or that other thing.' Don't mess with your reputation. It's so easy to ruin it. Like Paul Pogba, just like that. I'm sure somebody said, 'Well, listen, you know, we're having a great time, you know. Here's some cookies.' I'm told that you guys don't eat cookies, which is very good. I know how dangerous those things are. You also know how dangerous those things are. Or whatever it is. You understand what I'm getting at? And there he is now. Lost his life. Fine. That was my... But my last point is there's a coach, right? His name is Aaron McKie and he's a coach of one of the universities in the US basketball, and he talks about this and I am going to change it. He was talking to somebody and I'm going to change it to suit you. So he says something like your grandfather never had a car, right? I think so. For the most part, most of us, our grandfathers never had a car. They probably didn't have running water. You know, they're in shacks and you understand, right? Your father has a good car. Most of you, right? More or less. You live in a house with running water. It's well furnished. Here's the kicker. You on the other hand, if you think you're going to have it easy, you will have no car, no house, no running water. That's what this person says. This coach said, 'Why? Why is that? I mean, don't we just improve one to the next?' And here's the kicker. He says tough times create strong men. So the tough times of our grandparents, etc., they created strong men. Your father, strong men create easy times so that you guys have an easy, you know, the soft life. Remember the one, soft life. I want to have a soft life. Weak men create tough times. So that's why you are at the point where you can go either way. Either become a weak man and then create all these tough times, or you can say no, I want to be a warrior. I want to be a warrior. And a warrior really looks at every time, every time there are no soft times for warriors. So what is the bottom line? The bottom line is that is what Strathmore instilled in me. That spirit of being a warrior. The strength and courage of a warrior. Fighting through the pain, tough times, struggle, but not giving up. Not giving up. Don't give up in your studies. Don't give up in life. Don't give up on yourself. Keep pushing. You're called to be a warrior. I don't know if your voice... I mean, what are you called to be? What are you called to be? Oh man. Warrior. I didn't hear you. Warrior. No, I didn't hear you guys. What's wrong with it? The entire school should hear you. You're called to be what? Warrior. That's more or less, we can do better than that. Okay. So you are called, the Strathmore spirit is calling you to be a what? A warrior. Excellent. Don't forget that.
If anybody has any question. Yes please.
