Ask and you receive | Chibuzo Ikonta | TEDxUnilag
okay hi um call me slim my friends call me slim um i was driving down here today i i thought i was gonna be late i thought i'll get here like one o'clock but i think i came in like 1 15 and so i was speeding and i have this really lousy habit that nobody should do which is texting while driving i really want to stop i really really do okay so i was texting i got a notification on instagram and i clicked it and i opened it and i saw this write-up it says you would underestimate the effect of one person or don't you underestimate of you the effect of you as one person unless maybe you've slept in your room remember how to put it unless you've slept in a hot room with what's one mosquito if you underestimate the effect one person can pull sleep in a room without an ac with one mosquito and then you know how effective one tiny little thing is okay so what i want to talk about today um i'm not going to sound all biblical i'm talking about something i refer to as ask and you will receive ask and you receive a couple of years ago i was doing an examination in latin ballroom a ballroom examination and my examiner was a muslim from lebanon and he said you christians he was so cynical i was like you christians you guys just say ask and you receive you wake up in the morning and say god what should i wear god what should i drink you depend so much on the spirituality that you have no individuality that the concept of ask are you right you receive is less spiritual than you think for example i want to drink water am i going to ask the bottle to you know open up and conjure the water into my mouth i'm not going to do that i'm going to step down i'm gonna open the bottle and i'm going to drink that action is the asking in other words he told me that ask can you receive is less than just saying i want i want i want it's doing the work it takes to get the job done and some christians find this difficult to you know to understand but then they see some people who they refer to as unbelievers making it and they are praying and struggling is hard and they're still like you know dancing shocking while others are dancing you know smoother dances stuff like that so the concept of asking you receive is really not opening your mouth to say oh god please give me or asking someone for something if i want to ask this young man for his camera he's probably going to say no this is my tool of trade this is what i do but then if i could do something if i could give him something that is worth more to him than the camera he will give it to me but there's no amount of cad drilling i'm gonna try with my you know my words even if i start dancing and singing or something if i get a girl to do some belly dance by deciding i'm singing while she's dancing it's not gonna work it's not gonna work so for those who are students for those who are businessmen for those who are office people the concept is more about doing the work it takes to get the job done i'm a professional dancer i'm a martial artist i'm a fitness expert a choreographer and a couple of other things i want to go into photography too so i might ask you for the camera later on and i've started my own company and along the line i've realized how true this is a couple of years ago i was working with a girl who was in department of law without diminishing any of the lessons and experiences i had with her it was one of the most wonderful times of my life at some time in 2010 we got into a rut where she said she saw this video of two people dancing and she said it's not here that you can become this guru you have to go there and i i felt there was something wrong with that statement but i wasn't smart enough to explain it to her so i kind of blame myself and she would just look at the video and she would say you can't get this good here you must travel abroad you must go to russia or you must go to france or you must go to london or somewhere maybe they're breathing different air or drinking different water maybe they're h2o they use capital letter on the edge and we use small i don't know what it is but she said you cannot get this good here and i didn't believe her you know her very much don't you she was the most stubborn girl i've ever met but wow what an experience and for four years we struggled together as dancers and you know people trying to start a company and when she made that statement i felt like that was the end of our partnership why because when one makes a statement like it's not here you can become that good if at that moment god had pushed maybe angel michael with blessings to coming to meet you and you just made that statement you'd be like i have to go back even if god himself should take hand and put on your head and you say you can't get that good here there's nothing that god can do you've tied his hands you've tied his hands and you don't have to pray you don't have to be strong in spirit you don't have to be christian or muslim or buddhist or whatever you just have to have some form of unity discipline and hard work and you make it so immediately she decided we are have to travel abroad and i felt we haven't accomplished everything we can accomplish here there's still so much we can get in this beautiful country i love this country so i'm i'm not so keen on going with that mindset i want to go but not with that mindset but she says no we must go we must go we must go and she left and i stayed four years later now i have found what she went to look for and she's in another country still looking in that continent actually still looking and i found it right here and i want to refer back to the introduction in the brochure it says the owner and the creator of no yeah i may be the guy who started the body language company but my co-owner is over there and my partner cora and at some point i'll be asking her to come and show something okay let me use one of my typical examples assuming i want to have a dance with a girl i'm using a dance scenario because this is what i know best or one of the things i know best and i look at the girl and i speak french okay sorry i don't speak french but i speak with some kind of strong funny accent or maybe she likes evil accent and i go baby can we dance and she's enjoying the accent that's what she likes she likes guys with ebooks and then i go baby man your eyes are so you know can we dance she's probably going to go oh my god i love his accent as if that's what she likes i'm just saying and she would go the next day a guy is going to come he's going to see the girl he wants to dance with he's going to spray some perfume he's going to adjust his shirt he's going to take his hair throw it to the back check his shoes he's going to walk up to her with this swag that she's never seen before he's not going to say anything and he's going to stretch his hand and she's going to melt which one is ask can you receive first or second actually both of them but one of them has a bigger effect no doubt no doubt right now you hear actions speak louder than words and then some people come and say but words go a longer way yes words go along the way but actions still speak louder than words so instead of opening your mouth and saying i want this i want this i want to achieve this i want to build that i want to attain that i want to pass this why don't you just keep quiet about it and do the work now i know in a scenario like unilag where you could work so hard oh my god i was unilate so i started on engineering and i transferred and they put me natural science from which they took they say it was just horrible really really horrible i don't want to tell you my story but it was bad but i started dancing in my extra year so thank god so just don't ask so it was horrible you know from one place to another you work so hard and you work so hard and you and you you oh my god you stay awake till 5am reading the dumbest course like gasps and all your friends go out on a party that they call salsa night and you the one who loves dance you stay behind because you want to achieve something you're putting in the work yeah yeah i know and then they all pass and you feel are you asking god hello what happened yes i know sometimes situations are less than you know adequate and these things happen but these things will always happen but you have to ask yourself that question not why did this happen but why did this happen that's a question it's not a verbal question it's mental work why did this happen what am i meant to see what am i meant to achieve why why am i being held back maybe i've not finished seeing everything i could see just imagine if i didn't get that extra yeah what would have happened maybe i'll be working in the bank maybe earning some i don't know some huge salary or something driving a fancier card and i'm driving and all that but i would have never met that girl over there and i met her behind just behind this building that's a story for another day so let's talk about ask and receive a little more let's picture a couple of people who go into a scenario and say this is what we want to get out of it this is what we want to get out of this out of this situation now what i try to apply is i don't speak about something i want to achieve this is a lesson i don't speak about what i want to achieve with anyone who can't add to it because once i speak it gets mixed up with air you know oxygen nitrogen h2o with capital letter perhaps it gets mixed up with all these other things and then it becomes watered down for example i want to take over the world and then i start talking about it someone else might just take my idea and start taking over the world you know it was annoying for me i would write a story or write a story i'll say oh i should make this into a book and then two three years later i see the concept being used in someone else's story who i told about i'm like hey but that was my idea i shouldn't have talked about it i should have just asked which is what do the work now i'm going to illustrate what asking you receive is and this at this point i'll invite my partnering crime dance capoeira business and a couple of other things don't ask i would invite her to this day to physically illustrate what ask and you receive is there is a beautiful lady and i think you can all agree me when i say she's beautiful she's a dancer she's a model she's a singer she's mine sorry sorry okay i'm about to take cora here and lead her into a movement in a dance that we call the rumba we call it a basic movement i'm about to take a and you see what i'm doing i just go like that this is what i'm producing how do you like it how do you like it we're walking together it's nice eh i'm not asking i'm telling now i want to ask that's asking for a lady in dance who is you know mature enough to understand the difference between a and b a being this and b being this should understand that a man who wants to put her into a step he's not going to use his hand he's not going to use his chest he's not going to use his leg he's going to use his entire beam to conjure up the question which is i want you to step back when i step forward which is this and then she responds and she comes back and then this way and that way and this now i want to turn around i go this way and she's here and there and she's there she's still moving and i bring her in and i stop at my body and then we move and move and move this is ask and you receive now it may look now it may look like oh these guys must have practiced they must have practiced and summer but the truth is for those of us who have gotten into dance i've seen the difference between dance and dance and there are forms of dance in nigeria that up to 30 40 50 people do but you find only like five or six people who do it properly why because they're going through the gruesome annoying what a word can i come up with process of getting it right and this is the question i have asked this is the question i urge you to ask what does it take for me to get from this point that i am to that point that i am without without speaking without opening your mouth to ask and water down your actions ask and you receive do the work it takes to get the job done keep at it build on your product build on your product because the last thing i'm going to say is this for those of you who are businessmen for those of you who are working for those of you in school or whatever no matter how prejudiced anybody is everyone always wants the best for themselves so be the best you can be thank you you