JAMIE VARDY (Success Story)

For the thousands of footballers who play in non-League, Jamie Vardy is living proof their dreams can still come reality.

For those below-the-radar players who put up with the backwaters, the muddy pitches, the pocket money salaries and the constant juggling of football with a day job, Vardy's incredible rise to the top is a real inspiration.

This is a fairytale where new chapters keep being written, with Vardy taking his goal tally to 10 for the season on Saturday as he scored in a seventh consecutive Premier League game.

The happy result is that his Leicester City team are fifth in the table, just three points off leaders Manchester City and already free of the relegation anxieties of last season.

This season has already seen the striker capped for England in their Euro 2016 qualifiers against San Marino, Estonia and Lithuania. The form forward in the country, Vardy has an excellent chance of going to Euro 2016.

And more history is in his sights. As Leicester travel to West Brom at the weekend, Vardy will be aiming to score in an eighth consecutive top-flight game.

This will draw him level with Liverpool's Daniel Sturridge, whose run finished in February 2014, and Manchester United's Ruud van Nistelrooy, whose scoring streak ended in January 2002.

Beat that and Vardy will just have Van Nistelrooy's run of scoring in 10 consecutive Premier League games up to August 2003 to eclipse.

That would be a phenomenal achievement - bear in mind too that Vardy is a Leicester player and, with all due respect, doesn't have the service available that Van Nistelrooy did at United back then.

After West Brom, the Foxes take on Watford and Newcastle United so the feat is eminently possible. Indeed, he could surpass the Dutchman by scoring against Man United on November 28.

At present, he looks capable of scoring against anyone and, according to some reports in Spain, that form has even attracted interest from Real Madrid. Now that really would be a rags-to-riches tale worthy of Hollywood.

Vardy is now 28. When he was 25, he was still playing in non-league with Fleetwood Town.

In an age when footballers as young as eight or nine are being hoovered up into academies by the leading clubs and set off on the treadmill of coaching programmes, youth ranks and loan spells, Vardy's progress is a reminder of how things used to work.

It is now rare to see a player emerge that hasn't been through the academy process, to see someone flourish who is familiar with the unglamorous rough and tumble of the non-league.

The likes of John Barnes, Ian Wright, Stuart Pearce, Les Ferdinand and Chris Waddle all played beneath the Football League and had to graft to get their big break.

Another was Crystal Palace manager Alan Pardew, who spoke on the subject of Vardy's rise before watching the striker score the winner against his team on Saturday.

Pardew, who played for five non-league clubs before joining second division Palace in 1987, said: 'I think it's important someone like myself highlights Vardy because it is important for the game.

'When you're playing non-league you've still got a chance of that dream. There is always an avenue to give players that dream of what Vardy is doing right now.

'There can be certain pampering being done in the academies that softens players. There is no chance of that in non-league.'

As Vardy knows all too well. He started his career at Stocksbridge Park Steels, a club based in a small town wedged between the city of Sheffield and the northern fringes of the Peak District.

They played in the Northern Premier League - the seventh tier of the English game - during Vardy's time. Their Bracken Moor ground holds 3,500 people and one end is just a grassy bank - a far cry from Wembley Stadium.

The forward, released by Sheffield Wednesday's academy as a teenager for being too small, combined playing for Stocksbridge for £30-a-game with back-breaking work in a carbon fibre factory.

He admitted in recent interviews that rushing from 12-hour shifts on the factory floor to training or matches with Stocksbridge meant his only nutrition came from fast food outlets at motorway service stations.

There was also the weeks when the 20-year-old Vardy played with an ankle tag following a criminal conviction for assault. Vardy says he was sticking up for a deaf friend who was being mocked by some youths.

Another condition of his conviction was a 6pm curfew, meaning he would sometimes have to be subbed off in matches on the hour mark and make a quick getaway in his parents' car to get home in time.

Of course, Vardy's main business was scoring goals and 66 in 107 league games for Stocksbridge led to a move across Yorkshire to FC Halifax Town in 2010.

Having reformed two years earlier, the £15,000 spent on Vardy was the first money the phoenix club had spent on players.

A year later, after 27 goals had delivered Halifax the Northern premier League title, that value had increased 10-fold as Vardy was bought by ambitious Conference side Fleetwood Town.

It proved excellent business for the Shaymen, whose chairman David Bosomworth told Sportsmail earlier this year: 'We always knew he was special. He had hunger, desire and work-rate.

'I hope his story is a message to players rejected by Football League clubs who think about packing it in. Don't. Go into non-league and show what you can do.'

It soon became apparent that Fleetwood was just another stepping stone for the prolific forward, now earning £850 a week.

He scored 31 goals and guided the Lancashire team into the Football League for the first time. For some games, as many as 30 scouts from bigger clubs would descend on their Highbury Stadium.

Among the many managers who admired Vardy was Roy Hodgson, then in charge of West Brom, and the Baggies tried to sign him. Little did we know then that Vardy would eventually work with Hodgson at an even higher level.

Their mission to reach the League complete, Fleetwood sold Vardy to Leicester City in May 2012. The fee was £1m, potentially rising to £1.7m, and a non-league record.

Nigel Pearson was key in persuading Vardy to choose Leicester ahead of his other suitors. It was the Sheffield Wednesday connection - Vardy grew up near Hillsborough, Pearson was the Owls skipper.

But it was far from an auspicious start. The striker struggled for form and, after criticism from fans, even considered quitting football at the end of his first season at the East Midlands club.

Again, it was Pearson, with assistant Craig Shakespeare, who persuaded Vardy to carry on - with spectacular results.

16 goals in the 2013-14 season guided Leicester back to the Premier League as champions and we all know the rest of the story.

The question now is how much more can Vardy, the embodiment of dreams coming true in football, go on to achieve?

- Be Inspired.

Another reason why we don't give up ( Walt Disney success story)

Before he became the legend that he is today, this man was struggling to make ends meet. In 1919, while working for a newspaper, he was fired by the newspaper editor because he “lacked imagination and had no good ideas.” In January 1920, he formed a short-lived company with another cartoonist. However, following a rough start, he left temporarily to earn money at the Kansas City Film Ad Company. He was soon joined by Iwerks, who were not able to run their business alone. Later, though he acquired his own studio which was successful, studio profits were insufficient to cover the high salaries paid to employees. The studio became loaded with debt and wound up bankrupt. After that, he decided to set up a studio in the movie industry’s capital city, Hollywood, California.

He created Oswald the Lucky Rabbit. Oswald, which was one of his first huge successes in the cartooning business. At that time, he was only receiving a 20 percent cut on his films and was ready to negotiate for higher since he was barely earning. He received another setback when his producer stole the character, and also stole his animation crew by negotiating contracts with them. His producer thought he would cave and work with the mere 20% he was paid.

While most people would pack their bags and return home crying, or work for minimum wages, this dauntless young man went on to create his most successful cartoon character EVER – Mickey Mouse. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, this amazing person is none other than the entrepreneur, cartoonist, animator, voice actor, and film producer Walt Disney. Reportedly, he was also told that Mickey Mouse would not work since a huge mouse on the screen would terrify women. Well, it seems that women were not scared, for this mouse has continued to share his story on screens all over the world, even today.

- Be Inspired

How to create a masterpiece (By 2knowmyself)

Before i can tell you how to create a masterpiece let me first define a masterpiece from the personal development perspective.

A masterpiece could be a piece of art, a book, a speech, a business, an idea, a goal or any other thing that is too flawless and unique.

Based on this definition we can conclude that success in life is all about learning how to create masterpieces. For example, If your ideas were masterpieces then shortly you will become a very successful person provided that you put them into action.

So can any person create a masterpiece or do something that others never managed to do? Certainly that's possible!

People who created masterpieces

I am sure you are pretty familiar with the name Picasso. That famous artist created lots of masterpieces that made him really famous but the question is, do you know how many artworks did Picasso produce in his entire life?

Its something north of 100,000 artworks! Some internet sites say that the number is above 150,000 artworks!!

But do you know how many artworks were masterpieces? Only a fraction of what Picasso created in his entire life! Some of Picasso's artworks were mediocre while some were really bad.

The same goes for Shakespeare who wrote tens of poems, Sonnets and plays yet only some of them made him the Shakespeare we know today.

So how to create masterpieces

Did any bell ring yet?
Do you know that a great football player misses more shots than the ones he scores?
Creating masterpieces is all about producing more works or in other words trying more often! 

Had Picasso stopped trying after few mediocre paintings or had Shakespeare stopped after writing 10 below average poems we wouldn't have ever heard of them!

Creating masterpieces is all about trial and error! Its all about producing more and more work until you manage to reach the masterpiece. I am sure that you already know that Thomas edition made 999 failed attempts before he managed to create his masterpiece, the lamp! 

Do you know that 2knowmyself site is the masterpiece that was created after several other sites failed? I created a total of seven sites and only one of them turned out to be a masterpiece and this was enough to change my life. How can you create masterpieces

If you want to succeed in life and create master pieces then you must change your beliefs about luck, talent and success.

Lucky people are the ones who keep trying until chance favors them.
Talented people are the ones who keep trying until they master a certain skill.
People who create masterpieces are the ones who keep trying until a masterpiece emerges from within tens or even hundreds of failed attempts.

I have managed to become a self made millionaire at the age of 28. This didn't happen by chance because i already wrote that goal down five years before i accomplished it. Becoming rich is not about luck, starting big or being intelligent but its all about having certain beliefs about money and life.

• Be Inspired.

BENNET OMALU ( THE CONCUSSION)

Bennet Omalu discovered Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy in former football players, sparking years of denial from the NFL and the creation of a movie about his life's work.

Born in Nigeria in 1968, Bennet Omalu graduated from the University of Nigeria's medical school, before continuing his training in the United States. In 2002, he discovered the presence of a degenerative disease in the brain of former pro football player Mike Webster, naming the condition chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE). His efforts to raise awareness of CTE were rebuffed by the NFL, although mounting evidence eventually forced the league to make concessions. Omalu's work was dramatized in the 2015 filmConcussion, with Will Smith portraying the Nigerian-born doctor.

Early Years and Career

Bennet Ifeakandu Omalu was born in Nnokwa, Nigeria, in September 1968, during the Nigerian Civil War. The conflict had forced his family to vacate its gated compound in the village of Enugwu-Ukwu, but they were eventually able to return there to resume a comfortable lifestyle. 

The sixth of seven children of a civil engineer and a seamstress, Omalu was a shy but gifted student with a fertile imagination. He was admitted to the Federal Government College in Enugu at age 12 and dreamed of being an airline pilot. However, at age 16 he began medical school at the University of Nigeria. 

After earning his degree in 1990, Omalu interned at Jos University Hospital, before being accepted to a visiting scholar program at the University of Washington in 1994. He then served his residency at Harlem Hospital Center, where he developed his interest in pathology. 

In 1999, Omalu moved to Pittsburgh to train under noted pathologist Cyril Wecht at the Allegheny County Coroner's Office. He continued his education at the University of Pittsburgh, completing a fellowship in neuropathology in 2002 and a master's in public health and epidemiology in 2004. 

Discovery of CTE 

While working at the coroner's office in September 2002, Omalu examined the body of Mike Webster, a former pro football player with the NFL's Pittsburgh Steelers. Webster had displayed patterns of distressing behavior before his death from a heart attack at age 50, and Omalu was curious as to what clues the former player's brain would reveal. 

After careful examination of the brain, Omalu discovered clumps of tau proteins, which impair function upon accumulation. It was similar to "dementia pugilista," a degenerative disease documented decades earlier in boxers, though it had yet to be connected to football players. After confirming his findings with top faculty members at the University of Pittsburgh, Omalu named the condition chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) and submitted a paper titled "Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy in a National Football League Player" to the medical journal Neurosurgery. 

NFL Denial 

After the paper was published in July 2005, Omalu was informed byNeurosurgery's editorial board that the NFL's Mild Traumatic Brain Injury (MTBI) Committee was demanding a retraction. Omalu instead pressed forward with his examination of Terry Long, another former football player who had committed suicide at age 45, and discovered the same buildup of tau proteins. His follow-up paper to Neurosurgery was published in November 2006. 

As the mouthpiece of the NFL, the MTBI Committee discredited Omalu's research as "flawed" and refused to acknowledge a link between the sport and the brain damage in former players. However, Omalu gained an important supporter in Dr. Julian Bailes, chairman of neurosurgery at the West Virginia University School of Medicine and a former team physician for the Steelers. With Bailes and lawyer Bob Fitzsimmons, Omalu founded the Sports Legacy Institute (later renamed the Concussion Legacy Foundation) to continue studies of CTE. 

Despite the NFL's public evasiveness, Omalu and his supporters scored a victory when Mike Webster's family was awarded a significant settlement in December 2006. The following June, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell convened a "concussion summit" to discuss the issue with league doctors and independent researchers, although Omalu was not invited to participate.

Continued Studies and 'Concussion' 

Omalu moved to California in the fall of 2007 to begin his new position as chief medical examiner of San Joaquin County, though he continued his post-graduate education at Pittsburgh's Carnegie Mellon University and earned his MBA in 2008. That year, he also published his first book, Play Hard, Die Young: Football Dementia, Depression, and Death, and he advanced the study of CTE by branching out to athletes from other sports and war veterans. 

By 2009, Omalu's exhaustive work on the subject began to bear fruit. He was profiled in a September issue of GQ, which detailed his efforts to raise awareness of football-related brain injuries and the NFL's refusal to cooperate. Commissioner Goodell and other NFL executives were soon called to testify before a House Judiciary Committee, sparking an overhaul of the MTBI and rule changes to enhance safety, as well as a lawsuit brought forth by thousands of former players against the NFL. 

Omalu's story eventually reached the hands of Hollywood power player Ridley Scott, who tapped Peter Landesman to write and direct a feature film, and convinced actor Will Smith to sign up for a starring role. TitledConcussion, the film generated major buzz before its Christmas Day 2015 release, with Smith earning acclaim for adopting Omalu's distinct Nigerian accent and mannerisms for the role. 

For Omalu, the release of Concussion served as the ultimate vindication for years of hard work, and provided a spotlight for other endeavors. Along with his position as chief medical examiner for San Joaquin County, he serves as president of Bennet Omalu Pathology, as well as associate clinical professor of pathology at UC Davis Medical Center.

Meet Onyeka Onwenu Again.

 Onyeka Onwenu is a Nigerian singer, actress and politician. Born on May 17, 1961 she was re-christened “the elegant stallion” by the soft-sell media to consternation as a pointer and clear example of hard work and determination. Over the years, she has won the admiration of many Nigerians more so after her musical hit One Love. A strong activist, she staged protest at the gate of Nigerian Television Authority concerning artiste royalty fee and many still applaud her bravery. She has maintained an excellent spirit in her career as a singer, journalist, actress and humanist. She started her early childhood education in Nigeria then moved over to the United States. She studied in the Wellesley College Massachusetts and in 1977-79 was appointed a staff of the public information to the United Nations. Through her music Onyeka, has enthused unparalleled patriotism, preached, peace, love and tolerance. She has bagged several awards, many including the best pop artiste, a certificate of appreciation from the United States Aid 1989, a global media awards population institute award, Pan African arts and music award and many more. She is currently the Chairperson of the Council FOR Arts and Culture and using her platform and influence, is passionately involved in the fight against HIV/AIDS, TB & Malaria.

- Be Inspired

Lauryn Hill

Born to Valerie and Mal Hill, in South Orange, New Jersey, on May 26, 1975, multi-hyphenate entertainer (singer, songwriter, rapper, producer and actress)Lauyn Hill was singing at Harlem's Apollo Theater by the age of 13. Soon afterward, she and Prakazrel "Pras" Michel and his cousin, Wyclef Jean, formed a band that would become The Fugees. The band’s blend of hip-hop, soul and R&B broke through on The Score in 1996. Featuring the hit single remake of Roberta Flack’s "Killing Me Softly," the album sold 17 million copies and garnered two Grammy Awards (Best Rap Album and Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group).

Hill's first solo effort, The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill (1998), was a spectacular success. The album sold more than 12 million copies and earned her five Grammys, three American Music Awards, a Billboard Award, a Soul Train Award and an MTV Music Award. Collaborations with Aretha Franklin and Carlos Santana and dozens of magazine covers followed but Hill found it difficult to handle the subsequent super fame and became increasingly reclusive. 

During her withdrawal from public view, Hill had five children (ages five to 17). She has continued to perform intermittently but developed a reputation for being unreliable and keeping audiences waiting.

However, last year, she produced and contributed six tracks to Nina Revisited, the tribute album released alongside the documentary What Happened, Miss Simone?, which has received many accolades and on February 22, she joined The Weekend for a performance of his song "In The Night" on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.

• Be Inspired 

MAYA ANGELOU

History, despite its wrenching pain, cannot be unlived, but if faced with courage, need not be lived again. Lift up your eyes upon this day…” - Maya Angelou, “On the Pulse of Morning”

While April 2016 marks the 20th anniversary of National Poetry Month, the month also harbors the 88th birthday of one of the premier contemporary U.S. poets, the late Maya Angelou. A multidisciplinary icon, she was known for a body of work that not only encompassed poetry but also other narrative genres like memoir and screenwriting. Beyond the book world, Angelou saw her verse appear in a variety of media forms over the decades, including TV and film, music, stage productions and world-famous lecterns. For her birthday and poem lovers everywhere, we’re happy to present a small sampling of Angelou’s prodigious output.

Having established himself as one of the top leading men of the 1960s, Sidney Poitier set his sights on putting forth a film which would feature two black characters falling in love, a dynamic that continues to be rarely seen in cinema today. Hence came the 1968 feature For Love of Ivy, which showcased the premise of Jack (Poitier), a man who runs a truck operating business, being pushed into romance with Ivy, a domestic worker (jazz singer Abbey Lincoln) for a white family who wants to leave her job to create a better life. 

With poetry and music being bedfellows, Angelou co-wrote two songs for the film with Quincy Jones, including the track “You Put It on Me.” (Angelou had previously displayed her songwriting on select tracks from her 1957 album Miss Calypso.) Performed for the movie by bluesman B.B. King, the tune featured lyrics like: “You stopped my party when you came around, baby, and I’m so glad … that you put it on me.” With references to the “juju” power of women, Angelou wrote from the perspective of a man. The character speaks of his former cavorting ways and then plainly states he’s happier to have found someone he loves. The testimonial mirrored Ivy’s premise and the reaction moviegoers would have to Lincoln, a luminous presence seen here in one of her few screen roles.

In an ahead-of-his-time showcase, comedian Richard Pryor starred in his own primetime pilot before launching his variety show. Airing in May 1977, The Richard Pryor Special? featured a number of sketches that aimed to push audience sensibilities. In one poignant vignette, Pryor plays Willie the Wino, an alcoholic who passes out on his couch upon coming home from a neighborhood watering hole. Angelou in turn played Willie’s tortured wife. In a soliloquy that she’s credited with writing, she goes into the history of their relationship, the profound attraction she felt for him when they first met and the resulting traumas caused by the racism of the day. Angelou’s piece for the show was more of a dramatic monologue than a work of poetry, yet it still focused on the power of language, paying close attention to the emotional devastation associated with a specific word.

In January 1993, Angelou added yet another tremendous feat to her accomplishments, becoming the inaugural poet for the presidency of Bill Clinton. The event marked the first time a poet was asked to present work at a U.S. presidential inauguration since Robert Frost recited “The Gift Outright” at President John F. Kennedy’s ceremony. Angelou worked on her verse for weeks, and thus “On the Pulse of Morning” was eventually born. The poem relied upon elements of evolutionary history and the natural world to offer guidance on what unites global communities. With a prescient understanding of the cost of war as well, Angelou wrote: “Come clad in peace, and I will sing the songs the Creator gave to me when I and the tree and the rock were one...” The lauded poem later appeared in book and audio form, winning a Grammy for the latter.

 “Alone” for ‘Poetic Justice’

In the summer of 1993, director John Singleton released his sophomore feature-length film, Poetic Justice, starring Janet Jackson  as the titular character. Justice is a young, journal-writing poet working as a hair stylist in urban Los Angeles who has faced alienating loss and struggles to make her way. Jackson’s co-star was another premier poet, West Coast rapper Tupac Shakur , who portrays a postal service carrier who ends up going on a road trip with Justice. The two soon start to let their guards down and connect. Angelou, who also appears in the film, provided the poetry recited by Jackson. Poetic Justice opened with “Alone,” featuring the lines, “Lying, thinking last night, how to find my soul a home, where water is not thirsty, and bread loaf is not stone. I came up with one thing, and I don’t believe I’m wrong, that nobody, but nobody can make it out here alone.” Angelou’s words immediately got to the moral of the story and set viewers up for what was to come.

“In and Out of Time” for ‘Medea’s Family Reunion’

In one of her last big-screen appearances, Angelou appeared opposite Cicely Tyson in the 2006 Tyler Perry comedy Medea’s Family Reunion. As the character May, Angelou recites her work “In and Out of Time” during a wedding procession. The poem adds a wallop of romanticism to the film, unassumingly fusing elegance, harsh history and sensual delights. Standout lines from a literary hero born in spring: “You freed your braids, gave your hair to the breeze. It hummed like a hive of honey bees.”

Media mogul Oprah Winfrey and Maya Angelou developed a very close relationship over the course of their careers, with Angelou serving as an adoptive mother in many ways to Winfrey. The two first met at Morgan State University when Winfrey, as a journalist, asked to briefly interview the writer. Over time, as their friendship deepened, Angelou appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show multiple times. A widely revered Angelou poem is “Phenomenal Woman” which has also appeared in Poetic Justice and been readily embraced by Winfrey, who’s recited the work as well. Angelou herself did a remix of her famed poem for the foreword of the 2011 book, The Oprah Winfrey Show: Reflections of an American Legacy. In an ode to feminine power loved by people across the globe, Angelou explains the reason for her majestic presence: “It’s the fire in my eyes, and the flash of my teeth, the swing in my waist, and the joy in my feet. I’m a woman, phenomenally.”

• Be Inspired.

How he became unforgettable in Europe (Alex Ferguson)

Alex Ferguson is a Scottish soccer player known for his highly successful, long-term management of the Manchester United league.

Alex Ferguson was born on December 31, 1941, in Glasgow, Scotland, and made a name for himself playing soccer for Dunfermline Athletic. He went on to manage Aberdeen FC to great success and was hired in 1986 to run Manchester United, leading the league to win a slew of high-profile championship titles.

Alexander Chapman Ferguson was born to parents Alexander Sr. and Elizabeth in Glasgow, Scotland, on December 31, 1941. Growing up in the working-class ship building community of Govan, Ferguson was considered a bright boy but showed little interest in schoolwork. He preferred kicking a soccer ball with his younger brother, Martin, and friends through the alleyways between tenement homes, and with some assistance from Alex Sr., a former amateur player, he developed into a promising young talent.

Ferguson made his senior debut for the amateur Queens Park Rangers club as a 16-year-old in November 1958, scoring his team's lone goal. He moved to the St. Johnstone club in 1960, and although he displayed promising goal-scoring abilities as a striker, he struggled to earn regular minutes.

Ferguson turned professional after joining Dunfermline Athletic in the summer of 1964. Finally given extensive playing time, he tied for the Scottish First Division lead with 31 goals in 1965-'66 and finished as his team's top scorer in two other seasons with the Pars. He also showed the mind-set of a future manager, impressing teammates with his vast knowledge of opposing players and barking instructions throughout matches.

In 1967, Ferguson joined the Glasgow-based Rangers F.C. for a Scottish-record transfer fee of approximately $179,000 (65,000 pounds), but his homecoming ended badly. Blamed for a botched defensive assignment in the 1969 Scottish League final loss to Celtic F.C., Ferguson was forced to play with the junior side until he left the club that autumn. He spent the next four seasons with Falkirk, and then finished his playing career with Ayr United in 1973-'74.

The 32-year-old Ferguson began his managerial career at East Stirlingshire in 1974, making an immediate impact with his fiery, competitive nature. He moved to St. Mirren after a few months, and despite leading the Saints to the Scottish First Division championship in 1977, he was fired a year later for breach of contract.

It was with Aberdeen that Ferguson cemented his reputation as a top-flight manager. Breaking the Celtic-Rangers championship stranglehold, Ferguson led Aberdeen to three Scottish Premier League titles, four Scottish Cups, a League Cup, a Super Cup and a European Cup Winners' Cup over eight seasons.

Ferguson took over as boss of the renowned but underachieving Manchester United club in November 1986. His job was reportedly on the line after a particularly rough stretch early in the 1989-90 season, but the Reds recovered to win the FA Cup that year and a string of successes followed: the European Cup Winners' Cup in 1991, the League Cup in '92 and the elusive Premier League championship in '93.

Ferguson's crowning achievement came in the 1998-'99 season, when he became the first manager of a British side to win the treble: the Premier League championship, the FA Cup and the European Cup. It marked the start of a stretch in which United won three consecutive Premier League titles, and four in five years. In 2003, Ferguson received the Manager of the Decade award, presented by the FA Premier League to mark the first 10 years of the Premiership.

Ferguson again led his side to three straight Premier League titles from 2007-'09, along with European Cup and FIFA Club World Cup victories in 2008, and back-to-back League Cups in 2009-'10. In December 2010, he surpassed the 24-year-plus tenure of Sir Matt Busby to become the longest-serving manager in United's history. Fittingly, he ended the season with another milestone victory that gave United a record 19 Premier League championships.

Personal Life

Ferguson married his wife, Cathy Holding, in 1966. They have three sons: Mark, Darren and Jason. Darren played briefly for his father at Manchester United in the 1990s and later became a soccer manager himself.

A longtime supporter of the Labour Party, Ferguson also serves as a United Kingdom Ambassador for UNICEF. After leading Manchester United to its historic treble in 1999, he was awarded knighthood in the Queen's Birthday Honours List.

- Be Inspired.
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Birth of a Legend' (Pelé) 

                                                  

A new movie looks at the life and career of one of the greatest players that ever kick the soccer ball.

From the title shots to the end credits, Pelé: Birth of a Legend will make you smile. This narrative film about the eponymous Brazilian “footballer,” directed by brothers Jeff and Mike Zimbalist, is in the best Hollywood tradition of hero-making. Every cliché is celebrated, including a boyhood loss that cements Pele’s resolve, a loving father who hones the hero’s talent, and a mother who rules from the kitchen. The film’s predictability is counterbalanced by a terrific score comprised of several styles of Latin music (by Slumdog Millionaire’s A.R. Rahman), colorful production design (by Dominic Watkins), lots of special effects, and some memorable plays by the child actors who portray Pelé.

Filmed on location in Brazil, Pelé may disappoint serious soccer fans because less than half the movie unfolds on the field of play, but it will delight young audiences. And, for the uninitiated, the movie is an entertaining introduction to the soccer icon, born in 1940, a three-time World Cup winner. In Brazil, Pelé is a “national treasure.” In America, the forward was credited with putting soccer on the map, when in 1975, he joined the New York Cosmos, making his debut to a capacity crowd on Randall Island’s Downing Stadium. 

That game is outside the timeline of the film that begins when Pelé is 9 years old (Leonardo Lima Carvalho). It then moves to his professional start at 15 (Kevin de Paula Rosa), and to his recruitment and membership on Brazil’s 1958 World Cup team. Pelé opens with a brief sequence of the player’s famous “header” (a shot made with the forehead) in the last game that clinched Brazil’s victory. The “header” inspires an evocative 3-D special effects headshot of Pelé in which the black and white image assumes dimension and color as the camera slides around it, and the film moves to the tropical hues of Pelé’s storied boyhood in Bauru, Brazil.

Next is a deftly cut sequence, matched in energy by the lively score, that follows a group of obviously impoverished children organizing a soccer game. Part of the preparation is to pluck laundry from clotheslines, although the movie is so fast-paced that it is easy to miss the significance of the children’s actions. In Harry Harris’s biography, Pelé: His Life and Times, (Welcome Rain Publishers, 2000), Pelé says that because he and his friends could not afford a soccer ball, they would take the largest men’s socks, stuff them with rags or crumpled newspaper, roll them as tightly as possible into the shape of a ball, and tie them with a string. 

Shoeless play was also not uncommon when the hero, born Edson Arantes do Nascimento, was a boy nicknamed “Dico.” Pelé and his childhood friends played soccer barefoot, as they do in the movie, and formed an amateur team called the Shoeless Ones. In the first part of the film, the Zimbalist brothers suggest that in addition to Pelé’s natural talent, it was street soccer that developed his versatility. As Harris explains, playing on unpaved streets took “some skill just to keep your balance on the surface,” and to control a “ball” that changed weight and shape every time it was kicked, or landed in a puddle. 

The street is also where Pelé found his ginga. 

A living legend, credited with coining the phrase “the beautiful game,” Pelé was described as a player who harnessed his ginga. Brazilians use the Portugese word to define their brand of soccer, but also what they view as their natural grace. In Pelé, the hero finds his ginga as he practices with his father, Dondinho (singer-songwriter Seu Jorge), who had a brief career as a professional footballer. When Pelé is chosen for the World Cup team, his coach, Vincente Feola (a miscast Vincent D’Onofrio), attempts to suppress the ginga, calling it street soccer.

The second part of Pelé is devoted to the talented teenager who is recruited into the Santos Football Club in São Paulo, and works his way up through the various junior teams, and finally to Brazil’s national team. Viewers not familiar with soccer will miss the fine points, but easily grasp the final phases of Pelé’s journey, when the hero must reconcile the boy he was with the man he is becoming. In his first professional game, Pelé makes a bad play, par for the course for sports heroes. 

The coach realizes that because of his age, Pelé is a good deal smaller and thinner than his teammates, so he puts him on a special diet and sends him down to a youth league. In despair, Pelé heads home, but is stopped at the train station by a famous, retired footballer. In real life, Pelé was spotted by Sabu, the son of the club’s chef. Who better to assure the homesick teenager, worried that he would never be big enough to play, that he would get fat on the new diet?  

Pelé takes an unusual view of the 1958 World Cup quarter and semi-finals, as rife with racism against the dark-skinned Brazilians. According to the filmmakers, the entire Brazilian team was also at odds with Feola who was convinced that if they did not adapt to European-style soccer, which differed from the more aggressive Brazilian formations and play, they would suffer a defeat. Updating sports history is dicey, but the Zimbalist brothers do it well.

Harris says that everybody he knows has a story about Pelé. I have one, too. In 1986, I walked into The Palm in East Hampton with a friend, and Pelé was sitting alone at the other end of the bar. He bought us a drink. Then he pointed to the TV where a post-season baseball game was underway. For ten minutes, while Pelé waited for his dinner companion to arrive, we talked about baseball with the best footballer there ever was.

• Be Inspired

Idris Elba is an award-winning British actor known for roles in screen projects like 'The Wire,' 'Luther,' 'Thor' and 'Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom.'

Synopsis

Born on September 6, 1972, in London, England, actor Idris Elba starred in British productions before making his way to the United States, earning acclaim as a crime boss in The Wire. He turned to film with a mix of lead and supporting roles in fare like Daddy's Little Girls, Thor and Prometheus. Elba won a Golden Globe Award for his role on the television series Luther and played Nelson Mandela in the biopic Long Walk to Freedom.

Background

Idrissa Akuna Elba was born on September 6, 1972, in the Hackney section of East London, England. An only child of Sierra Leonean and Ghanaian descent, Elba eventually attended the National Youth Music Theatre's training programs. He landed a number of British television roles and worked with his father in a car factory before eventually making his way to America. He settled in Brooklyn, New York, and Jersey City, New Jersey, working as a doorman at the comedy club Carolines and DJing while struggling to make ends meet.

'Wire' Breakthrough

Idris Elba got his major break starring as crime boss "Stringer" Bell on several seasons of the highly acclaimed HBO drama The Wire. Other parts followed, though Elba later lamented that he was continuing to get lots of offers for gangster roles during this time.

The statuesque Elba transitioned to a big-screen career as well, landing film roles in a variety of genres. He starred as a mechanic in director Tyler Perry's feature Daddy's Little Girls (2007), a general in the zombie-laden 28 Weeks Later (2007) and a devoted husband opposite Beyonce Knowles inObsession (2009). Sci-fi/fantasy beckoned to the actor as well, as seen with his roles as Norse god Heimdall in Marvel Comics' Thor (2011), directed by Kenneth Branagh, and as ship captain Janek in Ridley Scott's Prometheus(2012). Other films on Elba's roster from this period include This Christmas(2007) and RocknRolla (2008).

'Luther' and 'Mandela'

Elba also continued his TV work over the years with series like The Office,The Big C and The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency. The actor has received multiple Emmy Award nominations and won a 2012 Golden Globe Award for his lead role on the BBC America series Luther, portraying a driven yet tortured detective whose conduct brings up ethical issues. 

In the summer of 2013, Elba was seen as Stacker Pentecost in Guillermo del Toro's  robotics-and-monsters flick Pacific Rim. That fall, he earned raves for his portrayal of President Nelson Mandela in the film Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom, starring opposite Naomie Harris as Winnie Mandela. The actor earned Oscar buzz and was nominated for a Golden Globe for his performance as the famed South African activist. (He lost the Globe to Mattew McConaughey , who won for his lead role in 2013's Dallas Buyers Club.) 

In 2014, Elba starred in the thriller No Good Deed, directed by Sam Miller and co-starring Empire’s Taraji Hension Taraji Henson. The following year he played a military commandant on the acclaimed Netflix drama Beasts of No Nation and continued his starring role on Luther, earning Golden Globe nominations for both. Elba also has several other film projects in the works, including A Hundred Streets, Bastille Day and Star Trek Beyond. 

Elba has continued to spin as a DJ internationally. He's also performed as a singer and rapper, going by the name (Big) Driis.

• Be Inspired.

THE RISE AND RISE OF CHINUA ACHEBE.

Chinua Achebe is a Nigerian novelist and author of Things Fall Apart, a work that in part led to his being called the "patriarch of the African novel."

Born in Nigeria in 1930, Chinua Achebe attended the University of Ibadan. In 1958, his groundbreaking novel Things Fall Apart was published. It went on to sell more than 12 million copies and been translated into more than 50 languages. Achebe later served as the David and Marianna Fisher University professor and professor of Africana Studies at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. He dion March 21, 2013, at age 82, in Boston, Massachusetts.

Early Years

Famed writer and educator Chinua Achebe was born Albert Chinualumogu Achebe on November 16, 1930, in the Igbo town of Ogidi in eastern Nigeria. After becoming educated in English at the University of Ibadan and a subsequent teaching stint, in 1961, Achebe joined the Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation as director of external broadcasting. He would serve in that position until 1966.

Prior to joining NBC, in 1958, Achebe published his first novel: Things Fall Apart. The groundbreaking novel centers on the cultural clash between native African culture and the traditional white culture of missionaries and the colonial government in place in Nigeria. An unflinching look at the discord, the book was a startling success and has become required reading in many schools across the world.

1960s and 1970s

The 1960s proved to be a creatively fertile period for Achebe. It was during this decade that he wrote the novels No Longer at Ease (1960), Arrow of God(1964) and A Man of the People (1966), all of which address the issue of traditional ways of life coming into conflict with new, often colonial, points of view. (Anthills of the Savannah [1987] took on a similar theme.)

In a related endeavor, in 1967, Chinua Achebe and Christopher Okigbo, a renowned poet, co-founded a publishing company, the Citadel Press, which they intended to run as an outlet for a new kind of African-oriented children's books. Okigbo was soon killed, however, in the Nigerian civil war. Two years later, Achebe toured the United States with Gabriel Okara and Cyprian Ekwensi, fellow writers, giving lectures at various universities. The 1960s also marked Achebe's wedding to Christie Chinwe Okoli in 1961, and they went on to have four children.

When he returned to Nigeria from the United States, Achebe became a research fellow and later a professor of English (1976–81) at the University of Nigeria. During this time, he also served as director of two Nigerian publishing houses, Heinemann Educational Books Ltd. and Nwankwo-Ifejika Ltd.

On the writing front, the 1970s proved equally productive, and Achebe published several collections of short stories and a children's book: How the Leopard Got His Claws (1973). Also released around this time were the poetry collections Beware, Soul-Brother (1971) and Christmas in Biafra(1973), and Achebe's first book of essays, Morning Yet on Creation Day(1975).

While back in the United States in 1975, at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, Achebe gave a lecture called "An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad's Heart of Darkness," in which he asserted that Joseph Conrad's famous novel dehumanizes Africans. The work referred to Conrad as a "thoroughgoing racist," and, when published in essay form, it went on to become a seminal postcolonial African work. Achebe joined the faculty at the University of Connecticut that same year, returning to the University of Nigeria in 1976.

Later Years

The year 1987 would mark the release of Achebe's Anthills of the Savannah, which was shortlisted for the Booker McConnell Prize. The following year, he published Hopes and Impediments (1988).

The 1990s began with tragedy: Achebe was in a car accident in Nigeria that left him paralyzed from the waist down and would confine him to a wheelchair for the rest of his life. Soon after, he moved to the United States and taught at Bard College, just north of New York City, where he remained for 15 years. In 2009, Achebe left Bard to join the faculty of Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, serving as professor of Africana Studies as well as the David and Marianna Fisher University professor.

Chinua Achebe won several awards over the course of his writing career, including the Man Booker International Prize (2007) and the Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize (2010). He also received honorary degrees from more than 30 universities around the world. 

Chinua Achebe died on March 21, 2013, at the age of 82, in Boston, Massachusetts.

- Be Inspired.

 THINGS ENORMOUSLY PRODUCTIVE PEOPLE REFUSE TO DO

There is no magic formula for being enormously productive--just extremely good habits. Here are some help.

Have you ever wondered why some people are more productive than others? What's the magic formula?

I have had the privilege of working with and coaching some coaching some outstandingly successful men and women who are out there changing the world in a profound way. Each one of them is extremely busy, but they're never too busy to do what needs to get done, because they've built good habits and practices that they follow every day. 

Their good habits for super-productivity include being disciplined about the things they refuse to do.

Here are the most important attitude that you can start implementing today:

1.    Refuse to become distracted.  

Winston Churchill said, "You will never reach your destination if you stop and throw stones at every dog that barks." Especially in our age of 24/7 access to, literally, a whole world of distraction, it's easy to let go of your attention. If an action is not moving you toward a purpose or goal, stop doing it. Focus on what you want to accomplish, and refuse to become distracted. The successful person is always the one with the laser focus.

2.   Refuse to let negativity drag you down. 

There will never be a shortage of negative people. They're out there, and they have a tendency to connect with people who are trying to accomplish something. If you truly want to be productive, you must refuse to allow the energy of negative people to pull you off track. Instead choose people who inspire and lift you.

3.   Refuse to allow others to make your decisions.

 Enormously productive people refuse to look for people's approval. They decide for themselves what they want, what they need, and how they will proceed, all on the basis of their personal values.

4.   Refuse to allow past failures to drag you down.

 To move ahead in top form, you have to forget past mistakes, overcome old failures, and get past everything except what you are doing now. We all know that failures are not fatal; it is the courage to continue that counts. Failure can even be an important part of later success. Use your failures as steppingstones for your desire to succeed.

  

5.   Refuse to give mental space to self-limiting beliefs.

  The first step in attaining success is to give up the belief that you can't have it or don't deserve it. Challenge your self-limiting beliefs at every turn, because most of them are not true at all, and none of them are helpful. It's the things we whisper to ourselves that are the most powerful. Dream big, and take action.

6.   Refuse to believe what you want is impossible.

 When you know that impossible means only that you haven't yet found the right solution, you can create a vision for the things you want to accomplish. It may be hard, but hard is a long way from impossible when you have a willing heart.

7.   Refuse to become overwhelmed.

 If you want to stop being overwhelmed, concentrate on being productive and not busy. That means focusing on the things that fit your mission and goals, making time for the things that matter by cutting out the things that don't. Learn to say no to things that fall outside that range and to ask for help when you need it.

8.   Refuse to stop learning, developing, and growing.

 It's easy to put aside your personal growth or study time in the day-to-day crush. But the most effective people are those who remain committed to learning and growing in everything they do. It's not only about learning about the facts, but also training your mind to be open to new opportunities, ideas, and opinions. What you learn will always be part of who you are and who you want to become.

Refuse bad habits, create productive ones, and you'll find yourself able to do amazing things every day.

• Be Inspire.

How to Be a Better Thinker, Innovator and Problem Solver

Cogs replaced hands so to speak during the U.S. Industrial Revolution when businesses felt a rush to automate manual tasks. Now the technology rush is removing the cogs as we hurry to replace people running the lines with automated systems. With artificial intelligence not too far away, the trend for less human involvement is set to continue into the future.

So it makes sense that business is evolving, too, moving from a “doing” model to a “thinking” model.

As technology handles more tasks, mental agility has never been more important. If we want to future-proof our businesses, and ourselves, we need to be able to think, re-think and even un-think current processes. Like anything, coming up with solutions and new ways to see things takes practice.

Behavioral strategists Dan Gregory and Kieran Flanagan, authors of the new book selfish, Scared & Stupid  teach people in business how to become better thinkers, innovators and problem solvers; here are their best tips to get your mind muscles working:

1. Ideas are a numbers game.

When brainstorming, you want the numbers on your side. This is the secret to the best creative and problem-solving minds on the planet. You have to generate enough options to get the obvious thinking out of the way. Like reps at the gym, you need to push through the easy stuff and get to the difficult things for the best results.

Your first ideas are obvious and thus first-level thinking. You need to go deeper than that to find gold. You must go beyond that first-level thinking to discover unseen ideas that truly solve the problem.

2. Think in questions.

Train your brain to think in questions not statements. The problem with statements is that they presuppose a solution and can stop you from coming up with an innovative solution. Questions in contrast open up the solutions. Asking for a shelf sticker that draws attention to a product is very different from the question of how to increase noticeability at the shelf; it leads to different solutions.

The first gives you exactly what you asked for, but the latter could lead to breakthrough ideas: new packaging designs, a revolutionary product design, sound-activated point of sale, or multiple products in new flavors.

3. Don’t come up with ideas. Come up with solutions.

You need a problem to solve. One of the biggest problems we find is that people say, “I need a great idea,” and then they wonder why they can’t think of anything. We have never come up with a great idea in our combined 40-plus years in business, but we have come up with a huge number of innovative solutions.

Ideas solve problems (even those the market is unconscious of), and if you have not defined a problem, chances are you will not miraculously have any ideas that are useful. Spend time looking for problems that need solving rather than trying to think differently about nothing in particular.

4. Back yourself into a corner.

The tighter the corner, the more creative you seem to get. So much so that creative people have a mantra: “Grant me the freedom of a tight brief.”

The brain seems to work better under duress; perhaps our survival instincts kick in and adrenaline fuels us to find a way out. So find a problem and then add parameters until you feel a little panicked. Slight beads of sweat forming on your brow are perfect..

5. Collide ideas and thinking.

Your ability to think different is crucial. A great way to do this is to get different inputs and inspirations from different people, places, industries and systems. If you want to become an agile thinker, you have to learn beyond your own role, read a lot, be interested in everything and look to other industries to see what they are doing.

The most successful patents often combine thinking or tech from different industries, and new product design can be as simple as colliding thinking. For example, putting use-by dates onto pillows as the Australian brand Tontine did is a food industry idea repurposed very successfully.

Are you ready to start working out and developing those idea muscles? You may be surprised at what you can do.

• Be Inspired.

OMOTOLA JALADE EKEINDE (Success Story)

Omotola Jalade Ekeinde (born February 7, 1978) is an actress, singer, and philanthropist from Lagos, Nigeria. Since her Nollywood film debut in 1995, she has appeared in an astounding 300 films, selling millions of video copies. After receiving numerous high-profile awards, launching a music career, and amassing an enviable fan base, the press has revered the Screen Nation 'Best Actress' as Africa's biggest star. Today, she is not only noted for her incomparable showbiz accomplishments, but is also applauded for her remarkable humanitarian efforts. Over the years, Omotola has been a pioneer in the Nollywood film industry, successfully becoming the most watched actress in Africa.

Omotola spent the early years of her life growing up with a family of five, including her parents and two brothers. She began to work as a model before launching her on-screen career and attending an unexpected audition. Omotola's critically acclaimed breakout role came in the 1995 film, "Mortal Inheritance", in which she portrayed an ill woman combating sickle-cell disease. Her performance in "Mortal Inheritance" earned the actress several awards, including, Best Actress in an English Speaking Movie and Best Actress overall at the 1996/97 Thema Awards, while the film itself is revered today as one of Nigeria's best ever made.

In the late nineties and early two thousands, the increasingly known actress starred in several sequel films including, Lost Kingdom 2, Korsorogun 2, and Blood Sister 2, leading to a Grand Achiever Award on behalf of the Global Excellence Recognition Awards in 2004.

By the mid 2000s, Omotola had catapulted into A-list status alongside other prominent performers like Genevieve Nnaji, Stella Damasus, and Pete Edochie. Omotola was awarded 'Best Actress in a Supporting Role' during the African Movie Awards in 2005.

Itching to connect with her huge fan base on a more personal level, OmoSexy, as her fans would call her, launched a long-awaited music career in 2005 with the release of her debut album, titled, GBA. The album featured the singles, "Naija Lowa" and "The Things You Do To Me." Her sophomore album, "Me, Myself, and Eyes" brought in production from Paul Play and Del B, featuring the songs, "Feel Alright" ft. Harry Song and "Through the Fire" ft. Uche.

Aside from being a wife, mother, and on-screen performer, Omotola has always had a passion for writing; so much so, she was offered her own column in OK! Nigeria. The now famous column, labeled Omotola's Diary, features writing's directly from Omotola about her life, experiences, and her inimitable viewpoint. Her other works, include personal poems and co-written scripts for many of the films in which she has starred.

Omotola the philanthropist, powers her NGO project, the Omotola Youth Empowerment Project (OYEP). The undertaking brings hundreds of youths together for the Empowerment Walk and Convention. One of the program's very famous projects includes the 20 Widows Makeover. The program received a nomination for Best Charity/Cause Related Event at the Nigerian Event Awards in 2012 and continues to operate in remembrance of Omotola's late mother.

Her activism and philanthropy continues with Save The Children UK, Enough is Enough, and Amnesty International; working for causes like the Maternal Mortality struggle in Sierra-Leone and the Own Up, Pay Up and Clean Up campaign for Niger Delta. She's remained a UN ambassador for the WFP (World Food Programme) since 2005.

During the early 2010s, Omotola starred in several high-grossing films, which saw record-breaking success. The first being "Ije," (2010) becoming the highest grossing film ever in the African cinemas. This was followed by "Last Flight To Abuja," earning Omotola another box office record for becoming the highest grossing film in opening week. These accomplishments earned Omotola a new nickname, Cinema Box Office Queen.

In 2011, Omotola was invited to attend the Grammy Awards in Los Angeles, CA in recognition of her work with Amnesty International and her song "Barren Land," which was featured in a public service announcement, addressing the Shell Oil spill in the Niger Delta.

2012 marked another career high for Omotola. On October 27, she was awarded The Black Entertainment Film Fashion Television and Arts BEFFTA Icon Award, an exclusive honorary award for her outstanding contributions to the global film industry. Omotola acknowledged the recognition as an extremely special moment for her, stating, "this is the best award I have received on a global level." Since late 2012, Omotola has been starring in her very own reality TV-show airing on Africa's most popular network, Africa magic TV. The show, called "Omotola: The Real me," has become the most viewed television series in Africa as well as making Omotola the first Nigerian to ever have a reality television show.

In February 2013, Omotola's popularity was still rising when it was announced that she had passed the one million likes mark on Facebook, the world's most visited social network site. Shortly after, it was announced that Omotola was named one of TIME Magazine's Most Influential People In the World on the 2013 TIME 100.

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Chiwetel Ejiofor 

Chiwetelu Umeadi  Ejiofor popularly known as Chiwetel Ejioforwas Born on July 10, 1977, in London, England. He is an English actor, Director and a writer.

Chiwetel Ejiofor was born in London's Forest Gate, to Nigerian parents

of Igbo origin. His father, Arinze Ejiofor, was a doctor, and his mother, Obiajulu Ejiofor, was a pharmacist. His younger sister is a CNN correspondent known as Zain Asher.

In 1988, when Chiwetel Ejiofor was just 11years old, during a family trip to Nigeria for a wedding, he and his father were driving to lagos after the celebrations when their car was involved in a head-on crash with a lorry. His father was killed, leaving young Ejiofor alife but badly injured. The scars he got are still visible on his forehead. He is the second of four siblings,

 Ejiofor began acting in school plays at the age of thirteen at Dulwich College and later joined the National Youth Theatre. He thereafter got into the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art but dropped out after his first year, after being cast in Steven Spielberg’s film Amistad. He played the title role in Othello at the Bloomsbury theatre in September 1995, and again at the Theatre Royal, Glasgow in 1996, when he starred opposite Rachael Stirling as Desdemona.

Chiwetel Ejiofor was a stage actor before landing a part in the 1997 film Amistad. Many moreprojects were to follow, including Dirty Pretty Things, Serenity, Kinky Boots, Talk to Me,Redbelt and Othello. Having been nominated for three Golden Globes, Ejiofor earned further critical acclaim for his role as Solomon Northup in the biopic 12 Years a Slave. The film also earned Ejiofor an Academy Award nomination for best actor in 2014.

It is worthy to note that Ejiofor developed a passion for reading and the stage at a very early age.

During the early 2000s, Ejiofor featured in lead and supporting roles in many big-screen projects that showed his versatility as an actor, taking work in a variety of genres across the moral spectrum.

Some of the highlights: He received raves as a sleep-deprived taxi driver and hotel clerk with a medical background in the Stephen Frears thriller Dirty Pretty Things (2002), acting opposite Audrey Tatou. Ejiofor was then part of the large ensemble cast of 2003's Love Actually and later played villains in two notable sci-fi films—namely Joss Whedon's Serenity (2005) and Alfonso Cuarón's Children of Men (2006). Ejiofor also collaborated with Spike Lee in the films She Hate Me (2004) and Inside Man (2006), working with co-star Denzel Washington in 2007's American Gangster as well.

Ejiofor was the lead character—singing drag diva Lola—in the 2006 film Kinky Boots, for which Ejiofor earned a Golden Globe Award nomination. (The movie eventually went on to be adapted into a Tony Award-winning musical written by Cyndi Lauper and Harvey Fierstein.) Ejiofor received additional Golden Globe nods for his part in HBO's Tsunami: The Aftermath (2006) and, three years later, for his role portraying Thabo Mbeki in the South African drama Endgame.

Ejiofor also directed the 2008 short film Slapper; the same year he appeared in the David Mamet martial arts film Redbelt and performed lead in a stage revival of Othello, winning the Laurence Olivier award. After another ensemble venture with 2012 (2009), the busy actor starred as a government agent in the Angelina Jolie spy thriller Salt (2010).

The year 2013 was a major one for Ejiofor. He reunited with Mamet to be featured in the HBO biopic Spector and, in the summer, appeared in the Joe Wright play Season of the Congo, in which Ejiofor portrayed Patrice Lumumba. The actor also starred in the Nigerian film Half of a Yellow Sun—a drama about the Biafran War based on the novel by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie—which was shown at the Toronto International Film Festival in September 2013.

October saw the U.S. limited release of 12 Years a Slave, a biopic by British director Steve McQueen in which Ejiofor plays Solomon Northup, a free African-American musician who was kidnapped and forced into bondage during the 1840s. Ejiofor garnered much critical acclaim for the role, including a best actor Golden Globe nod (actor Matthew McConaughey ultimately took the Globe for his lead role in 2013's Dallas Buyers Club) and an Academy Award nomination for best actor in 2014.

Some of Chiwetel Ejiofor’s favourite quotes are:

“I loved reading when I was young. I was just completely taken by stories. And I remember taking that into English literature at school and taking that into Shakespeare and finding that opened up a whole world of self-expression to me that I didn't have access to previously.”

—

“Even though I loved the part [in the film Kinky Boots], there's always this possibility that it just wasn't in me; that I'd throw on the wig and say the lines and look like a moron or a fraud. But actually something different happened.”

—

“I think Shakespeare's so astute in his understanding of people being vulnerable, you know. And that love is so easy to corrupt. I think so many of Shakespeare's plays are about how fragile love is—how perfect and beautiful it is, but also how terrifying and easy to manipulate it is.”

—

“I think there's an obsession with arc, the arc of a character, the character's journey--but I don't think people change all that much in the end. I think people have a very primal, immediate nature, and they spend most of their time struggling against it or trying to reconnect with it.”

—

“I look at scripts really for whether they can be moving or penetrate some kind of truth. You are constantly chasing that feeling as an actor when every part of a production comes together.”

—

“I think I have a constant reflective relationship with [my father], but don't we all have that to some extent with people we have lost?”

—

“I decided to fly back to Nigeria to see my grandfather ... I had to get a car out from Lagos to Enugu and I realized this would be the first time driving on the same road that killed my father; making the decision to do that and confront it was a really important part of me coming to peace with the place.”

 The film 12 years a Slave really shot him to limelight. After the success of 12 Years a Slave, Ejiofor has tackled several projects. He received an Emmy Award nomination for his performance in 2014 for his work on the cable miniseries Dancing on the Edge. He played British jazz band leader Louis Lester in this 1930s musical drama.  

On the big screen, Ejiofor appears in the upcoming crime drama Triple Ninewith Aaron Paul and Kate Winslet as well as the post-apocalyptic tale Z for Zachariah with Chris Pine and Margot Robbie. He has also signed on to play a convicted drug trafficker imprisoned in Bolivia, which is based on the 2003 book Marching Powder.

It was announced in June 2014 that Ejiofor would play real life drug dealer Thomas McFadden in film based on the bookMarching Powder: A True Story of Friendship, Cocaine, and South America's Strangest Jail, written by McFadden and Australian journalist Rusty Young.

In 2015, it was announced that Chiwetel Ejifor had been cast as Baron Mordo in the 2016 film Doctor Strange.

• Be Inspired.

THE PRIDE OF A NATION (PRO. WOLE SHOYINKA)

Wole Soyinka was born on 13 July 1934 at Abeokuta, near Ibadan in western Nigeria. After preparatory university studies in 1954 at Government College in Ibadan, he continued at the University of Leeds, where, later, in 1973, he took his doctorate. During the six years spent in England, he was a dramaturgist at the Royal Court Theatre in London 1958-1959. In 1960, he was awarded a Rockefeller bursary and returned to Nigeria to study African drama. At the same time, he taught drama and literature at various universities in Ibadan, Lagos, and Ife, where, since 1975, he has been professor of comparative literature. In 1960, he founded the theatre group, "The 1960 Masks" and in 1964, the "Orisun Theatre Company", in which he has produced his own plays and taken part as actor. He has periodically been visiting professor at the universities of Cambridge, Sheffield, and Yale.

During the civil war in Nigeria, Soyinka appealed in an article for cease-fire. For this he was arrested in 1967, accused of conspiring with the Biafra rebels, and was held as a political prisoner for 22 months until 1969. Soyinka has published about 20 works: drama, novels and poetry. He writes in English and his literary language is marked by great scope and richness of words.

As dramatist, Soyinka has been influenced by, among others, the Irish writer, J.M. Synge, but links up with the traditional popular African theatre with its combination of dance, music, and action. He bases his writing on the mythology of his own tribe-the Yoruba-with Ogun, the god of iron and war, at the centre. He wrote his first plays during his time in London, The Swamp Dwellers and The Lion and the Jewel (a light comedy), which were performed at Ibadan in 1958 and 1959 and were published in 1963. Later, satirical comedies are The Trial of Brother Jero (performed in 1960, publ. 1963) with its sequel, Jero's Metamorphosis (performed 1974, publ. 1973), A Dance of the Forests (performed 1960, publ.1963), Kongi's Harvest (performed 1965, publ. 1967) and Madmen and Specialists (performed 1970, publ. 1971). Among Soyinka's serious philosophic plays are (apart from "The Swamp Dwellers") The Strong Breed (performed 1966, publ. 1963), The Road ( 1965) and Death and the King's Horseman (performed 1976, publ. 1975). In The Bacchae of Euripides (1973), he has rewritten the Bacchae for the African stage and in Opera Wonyosi (performed 1977, publ. 1981), bases himself on John Gay's Beggar's Opera and Brecht's The Threepenny Opera. Soyinka's latest dramatic works are A Play of Giants (1984) and Requiem for a Futurologist (1985).

Soyinka has written two novels, The Interpreters (1965), narratively, a complicated work which has been compared to Joyce's and Faulkner's , in which six Nigerian intellectuals discuss and interpret their African experiences, and Season of Anomy (1973) which is based on the writer's thoughts during his imprisonment and confronts the Orpheus and Euridice myth with the mythology of the Yoruba. Purely autobiographical are The Man Died: Prison Notes (1972) and the account of his childhood, Aké ( 1981), in which the parents' warmth and interest in their son are prominent. Literary essays are collected in, among others, Myth, Literature and the African World(1975).

Soyinka's poems, which show a close connection to his plays, are collected inIdanre, and Other Poems (1967), Poems from Prison (1969), A Shuttle in the Crypt (1972) the long poem Ogun Abibiman (1976) and Mandela's Earth and Other Poems (1988).

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Hakeem  Kae-Kazim (Bio-Data)

Actor Hakeem Kae-Kazim first gained prominence as a stage actor in the United Kingdom, appearing in several productions staged at London’s Royal National Theatre. From there, he made the transition to television, becoming a staple of British dramas in the late ‘80s and throughout the ‘90s. Notable among these roles include a two-episode run on the drama Ellington, and a recurring stint in the children’s series Grange Hill.

Kae-Kazim began appearing in films in 1999, but only gained prominence in 2004 for his role in the critically-acclaimed Hotel Rwanda. The film, a retelling of the efforts of a hotelier (Don Cheadle) in saving refugees during the Rwandan genocide, earned him attention, as it reaped rave reviews and award nominations despite a limited run. However, his only award nomination came in 2004, through a role in the Canadian television miniseres Human Cargo; he took a Gemini nomination in that year.

Nevertheless, Kae-Kazim became more prominent and began appearing in some more mainstream projects. He recently starred in Pirates of the Carribean: At World’s End, provided his voice to an episode of the animated series Ben 10: Alien Force, and appeared in the television special 24: Redemption, as well as in the follow-up seventh season of 24. He later landed roles in X-Men Origins: Wolverine, The Fourth Kind, Faith and Dreams, Black Gold, Inside Story, Black November, Half of a Yellow Sun, and Gotham. At present, he plays Mr. Scott on the TV series Black Sails.

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AYO RICHARD MAKUN

EARLY LIFE

The first Male child from a family of seven from Ifon, Ondo state, AY was born and bred in Delta State. He had a very humble and unassuming start, parlaying his charm and talent to a successful career in the Nigerian comedy scene.

He gained fame through impersonating Rev. Chris Okotie in his hilarious jokes, and by 2006, when he began; he was named the Best Up-Coming Comedian in Nigeria.

That wasn’t AY’s first award. The gifted comedian holds an enviable record of being the first student to direct a convocation production in the history of the Theatre Arts Department of the Delta State University, where he graduated in 2003.

In his campus days, he received many awards including: The Most Fashionable Student on Campus (1999 and 2000); The Most Celebrated Student on Campus (2001), Best Showbiz Promoter (2001), Jaycee Club Socio-Cultural Personality Award (2003), and The Most Celebrated Theatre Arts Student (2003).

HIS CAREER

As a literary offshoot of his creative overflow, AY wrote the column, Going AY-Wire as a guest columnist with The Sun Newspapers, (Nigeria’s most circulated National Daily) and also wrote another monthly column titled Jokes Apart in Gbenga Adeyinka’s monthly comedy journal, Laffmatazz. The multi-talented comedian also presented The AY Live on The Morning Drive every Friday from 6am to 10am on Rhythm 93.7 FM, Lagos.

AY has become the ‘father’ of many upcoming acts and established acts that are doing well in the industry, through the monthly AY’s Open Mic Challenge that held every third Sunday, at The National Theatre and later at The marquee of Federal Palace Hotels and Casinos, Lagos.

The AY Show, arguably the best Comedy Show on Nigeria TV, shows on many terrestrial television stations across the country including Africa Magic, winning BEST TV COMEDY SHOW in 2008, and has from its onset become a must watch for its teeming fan base.

The AY brand also publishes Nigeria’s first comedy magazine, and he hosts (across the country, too) the usually out-sold comedy and music concerts, AY Live.

AY Live holds an enviable quadruple record breaking title on the attendance to its annual concerts in Nigeria and London. In 2007, he held Lagos spell bound when the second edition of AY Live, Lagos Invasion drew a record crowd forcing him to do two shows instead of one, as planned. Two years later, similar feat was reenacted in Nigeria’s Federal Capital City, when AY Live, Abuja Invasion stood Abuja still, and becoming Abuja’s most attended entertainment events, ever.

MARRIAGE

A.y is married to Mabel Makun and they have a daughter together called Mirabel Makun.

AWARDS

In 2008 alone, AY won six different awards, all confirming one same thing:

COMEDIAN OF THE YEAR – Diamond Awards for Comedy
COMEDIAN OF THE YEAR – Mode Men of the Year Awards
COMEDIAN OF THE YEAR – MBG Abuja Merit Awards
COMEDIAN OF THE YEAR – Arsenal Award for Excellence
COMEDIAN OF THE YEAR – TEENS FAVOURITE
COMEDIAN OF THE YEAR – National Daily Awards

His movie 30days in Atlanta has won several awards as the best comedy movie in Nigeria.

ENTREPRENEUR

AY is the CEO, Corporate World Entertainment, an entertainment organization that is focused on packaging events and providing contents for radio and television.

Corporate World Entertainment began in 1998 as organizers of DELSU Most Beautiful Girl on Campus Pageant. Winners of this campus pageant became top beauty n Nigeria, and they include: Queen of Delta, 1998/99; Miss Nigeria Tourism (she represented Nigeria at Miss World Tourism) and the Most Beautiful Girl in Nigeria (Nigeria’s Representative to Miss World, and Miss Universe in 1999.

Today, Corporate World Entertainment powers AY Live ( the always-sold-out Comedy and Music concerts); The AY Show (the award-winning most-watched TV comedy show),and Open Mic Challenge: the monthly Talent-Hunt programme that produced the Likes of Emeka Smith, MC Shakara, Elenu, and Seyi Law – City People’s Best New Comedian of the Year. The newest spinoff of the AY brand is AY’s Crib which is set to hit both cable and terretial airwaves within the last quarter of 2012.

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AY is the eldest son from a family of  seven. He is from Ifon in Ondo State, but was however born

and bred in Delta State. A.Y attended Delta State University, Abraka where he obtained a degree in Theatre Arts in 2003.

Back in his University days, he received many awards. A.Y however got popular through his comic representation of Rev. Chris Okotie. As far back as 2006, he has won so many awards that showcase him as one of the best upcoming comedians in Nigeria.

In 2008, he got married to his wife Mabel  and is blessed with a daughter called Mitchelle.

Alibaba Akporobome gave AY the leverage to grow in the comedy industry when he made him his Personal Assistant and event manager.

AY is an award winning comedian. He has done many TV and Radio shows. He is the host of the popular TV show; AY live.

AY  has been a big influence in upcoming comedians in his AY Open Mic Challenge where young  comedians showcase their talents.

In 2009, he was made a U.N Peace Ambassador.

   

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