5 Important Life Lessons from Barack Obama

All around the world, headlines carried Barack Obama’s historic win when he was declared the 44th president of the United States of America. For a lot of people, Obama’s victory didn’t only signify his own. As the first African-American leader of a country with a harsh history of racial apartheid, his win ushered in a new era for American society.

As the US remains to be the planet’s lone superpower capable of influencing global affairs, it is easy to understand the worldwide elation that followed his win. He single-handedly initiated changing how the world viewed the US and Americans.

However, a deeper knowledge of Obama’s life will reveal that his struggle had been as personal as much as it was political. His rise from humble beginnings to become perhaps one of the most highly anticipated occupants of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue is rife with lessons everyday people can learn from.

Lesson no. 1: Dream big

Obama was born in Hawaii to parents who met at the University of Hawaii. He was an offspring of an interracial marriage: his father was raised in a small Kenyan village and his mother was similarly a small-town Kansas girl. When his father eventually returned to Kenya, he stayed in Hawaii with his mother. When he turned 6, he moved to Indonesia and attended grade school at the Southeast Asian country.

When Obama was in third grade, he wrote an essay detailing his dream of some day becoming president. The young Obama said his dream was borne out of a desire to make everybody happy. According to his teacher, he wasn’t sure which country Obama had in mind. Regardless, the interesting anecdote reveals the beginning of Obama’s vision that turned out to be around 40 years in the making but nevertheless bore fruit. Read more