Last night, on July 1st, 2024, the Kentucky Governor’s Scholars Program had the honor of welcoming former president of the Association of Independent Kentucky Colleges and Universities (AIKCU) to their Murray campus. After graduating from Louisville, OJ Oleka continued his academic career at Bellarmine, earning his MBA and Ph.D. Oleka ran for Kentucky State Treasurer in 2023 and lost, but he shared with the scholars that the Lord has called him to run again in the future. Although he is unsure when, he feels that the Lord will prepare him for a future election.
Oleka spent the evening inspiring and asking compelling questions to appeal to the scholars. He went on to explain that to be a leader, there are 4 words to “cling on to”. These words were power, pain, promise, and purpose.
Power, as he explained, is recognizing that you can’t do things yourself. “Power is a privilege, not a position,” he comments. After defining power to these young minds, he asked captivating questions like: “How will you use your resources to build power?” and “Will you use your power to benefit the people around you or just yourself?” Oleka then shared with the scholars a statement that was passed down from his father. Oleka recites, “when you have power, it will reveal who you truly are.”
Oleka then moves to his second point: pain. He unfolds that people see very clearly when they experience grief. Pain is a universal thing and as a leader, you must empathize with others. Oleka shares his experience with grief. His loss of a student due to gun violence opened his eyes on how to manage and use pain to help others.
His third point was promise. Oleka described promise as a dream. He then continued to tell scholars about his time in his previous election and how he failed by not winning. He stated that failure is a natural part of the process and teaches people a lot about what they can handle. “You must go through pain in order to succeed,” Oleka voiced. The question arose, “What will you do if you fail?”
Oleka’s fourth and final point was purpose, or in his words, “what you were put on the earth to do”. He ends with many more questions to leave the scholars on their toes: “What will your purpose be?” “How will you use it to help others?” “What type of leader will you be?” and “How will you utilize power, pain, promise, and purpose to be a leader?” Oleka inspired students to “use your power to go through pain to reach your purpose”.
OJ Oleka captivating student interest at his visit to GSP Murray on July 1st. Photo taken by Grace Conley.
Leave a Reply