Build This Mindset, Win Anywhere Globally by Apostle Femi Lazarus: MP3 Download & Sermon Notes

Authority Comes From Embodying Truth

For close to 21 years, Dr. Celia Apeah-Mensah walked with Dr. Myles Munroe — from 1993 until his passing in 2014. The most impacting thing was not what she heard. It was what she saw modeled.

Leaders model something. When you are young, you learn your traits through imitation — through what is modeled for you. You may disagree with how a leader behaves. But when you face the same kind of situation years later, you do not automatically switch to what you know is right. You switch to what was modeled for you.

Dr. Munroe lived and embodied his message. He loved people and valued people — the small and the big equally. One particular moment stood out during the economic crash. He told everyone at a conference: It is November. Christmas is coming. But there is a financial crisis. Do not buy anything new. You have nothing to prove to anyone. Do not borrow.

Later, at his home, the dining table was wobbly. His wife explained: he has told everybody not to buy anything — so they are not buying in this house. The man could have replaced that table without a thought. He was giving away a private jet and purchasing a new one. But his wife was honoring his public instruction in private. That is integrity.

Human authority comes from living truth. It does not come from the eloquence of your words. It comes from embodying truth and living it out.

There are people who sound very clever. Their words are admired in the moment and then gone like vapor. And then there are those whose words settle deep — whether you fully understand them or not. Something resonates and you percolate it for days. That difference is because they embody what they speak. He kept saying, You will get it when I am gone. Many people are only now getting it.

A Strong Sense of Purpose Changes Everything

Nobody believed in her as a woman like Dr. Munroe did. He would offer her board positions when she was barely making ends meet, just transitioning into itinerant ministry. His instruction: Take them all. You learn from it. It will stretch you.

He gave her a sense of purpose — and purpose is what defines the parameters from which the future will emerge. When you know why you are here, your context becomes irrelevant. Either the environment gets you, or you live above it.

The accountability that came with that mentoring relationship also shaped her. Someone was always asking: what are you doing? Who is doing it? You had to be on the straight and narrow. Mentoring is a great facility — it prepares leaders for the future. He is gone. But in many ways, he is not gone — because she is still here carrying the deposit.

Reading the World: A Father's Investment

From age 11 or 12, her father required her to read the foreign news page of Ghana's newspapers every single day — then write a weekly essay on one foreign story. Every morning, he asked for the agenda of the day, written down, dated. He would have her repeat after him: My book is my friend. Every day. She could not stand it at the time.

That shaped her paradigm. The reading was broad and variegated — not stuck to one subject. It built the ability to speak a little bit about economics, about politics, about different domains. Little things shape you without your realizing it.

There is nothing wrong with Africa. It is how we handle Africa.

Navigating Prejudice in the Public Square

In the workplace and in international spaces, the barriers have been double: gender and race. Coming into Western professional circles as an African woman means arriving against not just prejudice about gender but prejudice about race and ethnicity simultaneously.

Her father's counsel became her framework: Work so hard that when you are not there, they miss you. The more they came against her, the more she focused on becoming indispensable. What do I have? Who needs what I have? Where are they? How can I get it to them?

She also learned that her greatest enemy was herself. She had chickened out enough times to know that was never the best choice. So she began fighting the tendency to shrink back. She surrounded herself with other smart women — iron sharpening iron — who had gone before her and could champion her up when she wanted to retreat.

The corporate environment puts people in spaces where they compete for the same recognition and favor. Women who are not competing for the same thing will champion each other fiercely. The moment the same space is contested, the dynamics shift. That is not a character flaw — it is a structural reality created by systems that forced women to prove themselves individually.

On Vision, Hope, and Not Stopping

The mind is the womb of one's life. Belief systems formed early are powerful. When someone is told repeatedly that they are only a woman, only a girl — they can begin to buy into it irrespective of their actual ability. What kills potential is the absence of hope and a sense of a great expectation for your own future.

Vision beckons. Vision challenges you to live beyond the present.

Self-doubt is real. Even people who appear to have it together deal with it daily. Am I fit for this? Did I say the right thing? Did I make the right choice? The good side of that is that it keeps your standards high. The other side is that it can cause you to beat yourself up constantly. The key is holding both in tension — not letting the doubt shrink you and not letting it disappear either.

The why in life is what keeps you moving. Her why keeps her going at 65. She started a countdown of how much time she had left after turning 60 — and she is determined not to die without a legacy. Even if that legacy is simply holding someone's hand, helping them find their purpose, helping someone break through their limitations. Not on my watch — as long as there is life and breath, that commitment holds.

Stewarding Resources: Africa's Missed Opportunity

Africa is not lacking in resources. The problem has been how those resources are stewarded. A survival paradigm makes you shortsighted — hand to mouth, no long-range plans. While others are thinking generationally in 100-year spans, a survival mindset cannot plan beyond two or three years. That gap is not intelligence — it is a paradigm shaped by circumstances.

The example is simple: when you hunt and kill a pig, a survival mindset eats the feet. Someone else takes the trotters, someone the skin, someone discovers that certain organs can be used for medical instruments. The point: maximize what you have. Do not eat your seed.

Rural women in Malawi, living in mud huts — they have learned to cultivate differently, run cooperatives, and keep written records. Their children are in secondary school and university. Not speaking English does not mean you lack brain power. The ability to maximize your resources is intelligence in any language.

Africa on a Reset

Africa has arrived at the point of focused, consistent discontent with the status quo. And that is the beginning of transformation. The moment a person becomes discontent with their condition is the moment they reach toward breakthrough — even before anything external has changed. Discontent ends helplessness.

Ghana's gourmet chocolate — once nobody wanted it. Now it is a gift worth giving. Manufacturing is different. The paradigm has shifted from dependence to stewardship. When the back was against the wall, people began to look inward. That is the reset.

The young people are evidence. They dream bigger than their grandparents could imagine. They are audacious. Nobody told them they could not. They blend across cultures, understand commerce relationally, communicate across languages. They fall, they get up. They are not in silos. That is hope.

When past experience becomes your best teacher, your future is imprisoned. Young leaders challenge that. They question systems. They call institutions to accountability. They are not afraid of the thing old power is afraid of losing.

Countries to watch: Ghana, Nigeria, Kenya, Uganda, Senegal. West Africa has a sweep of something flowing. South Africa is coming through its challenges. Zambia, Tanzania, and Malawi — younger people are rising to the fore.

Africa is on a reset. Watch it in five years.