To the 6.7 billion people on earth searching for meaning and significance in life, believing deep inside that they were born to do more than survive, make a living and die.

To the individual stuck in the human rat race and imprisoned by the notion that success in life is the accumulation of material things. My hope is that you be set free from the cycle of futility in pursuing goals set in life by your culture and society and discover the secret to your personal fulfillment.

To the youth of our nations who seek purpose and meaning in life. May you discover the value and power of your inherent gift and become a leader in your generation by serving that gift to the world.

To all the trustees and members of the International Third World Leaders Association! May you continue to manifest and maximize the leadership capacity in you and others.

To my son and daughter, Charisa and Chairo (Myles Jr.), who’s leadership potential inspired many of the principles in this work. May you continue to follow your destiny to serve your leadership gift to your generation.

To the Source of all true gifts, the Creator of destinies and Sustainer of life. May your truth explode in the hearts of all who read these pages.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Every accomplishment in life is the result of corporate effort. Just as it takes a village to raise a child, so it takes a team to author a book. Being aware that we are all a sum total of all that we have learned from all the people and experiences we have met and had in our lives, no one can claim full credit of any measure of success in any endeavor. This book is no different.

I want to thank my beloved wife Ruth, and my children, Charisa and Chairo (Myles Jr.), for their support, patience and corporation while I pursue the many projects included in my earthly assignment. You are all my principle treasures. Thanks for helping me manifest my inherent gift and allowing me to serve it to the world.

Adrienne Ingram, who coordinated this project, for encouragement, input, dedication, motivation and continued pursuit of me in getting this project done.

Angela Dodson for your incredible gift, inspiration and skill in bringing the best of this content out of me. This work could not have been completed without you as you continually and consistently demonstrated the very principle in this book— servant leadership. I am eternally grateful and will always remember your contribution through your gift.

AUTHOR’S FOREWORD

Taught to Serve, Not to Lead

It was a beautiful sun-drenched morning in my village called Bain’s Town on the little island

twenty miles long and seven miles wide called New Providence, also home of our capital, Nassau. Over two hundred of us, just six and seven years old, stood outside on the hard dirt ground, wearing our neatly pressed green and white school uniforms. Each of us held a twelve- inch stick to which was attached a cloth print of the Flag of the United Kingdom of Great Britain, called the Union Jack. At nine o’clock in the morning, the temperature was already ninety degrees, but we were commanded to not move a muscle. Droplets of perspiration fell from my brow and into my mouth. It was Commonwealth-Flag Day, and we were keeping a long-standing tradition of our imperial rulers.

All over the island, every school was mandated to gather all students in assemblies to honor the Queen of Great Britain through patriotic songs, recitations of British poetry and corporate pledges to our monarch and the empire for which they stood. We were all called colonies and knew we were considered second-class subjects of Her Majesty and the Great United Kingdom of Great Britain.

I was participating in the same ceremony as countless millions of others throughout the commonwealth of Great Britain. We were all subjects of “colonies” of European kingdoms. These kingdoms included Great Britain, France, Spain, Portugal, Belgium and Holland. Colonization impacted most of the world, including Central and South America, Africa, India, the Pacific Islands, Asia, North America, and the Caribbean Islands, where I was born.

On that hot Commonwealth Day morning under that scorching, uncovered sun, we sang the songs of the Empire, as we did every morning. As uniformed children, we enjoyed singing these songs, each of us straining to be heard above the others. I did not know the mental impact of these imperial psalms. They were brainwashing, converting, conditioning and eventually shaping the self-concept, self-worth, self-esteem, and perception of the world in which we would live. These songs also reinforced the books used in each classroom by our British teachers, volumes that only spoke of the English life, culture and history. We were to be convinced that all that was British was good, and honorable, superior, and just.

However, the most vile impression on our young minds was that we were born to serve and worship the empire, that we were not capable of leadership. We were conditioned to “depend” on the colonial powers for life and value, trained that we could not determine our own destinies, chart our own future, plan our lives.

The precepts we, and those in colonies on every continent, were taught from the cradle throughout the entire span of life still affect us this very day in our post-colonial era. Here are words of songs we were made to sing every day; keep in mind that these were sung by the offspring of those who had been enslaved:

When Britain first at Heav’n’s command Arose from out the azure main;
Arose, arose from out the azure main;
This was the charter, the charter of the land, And guardian angels sang this strain:

Rule, Britannia! Britannia, rule the waves! Britons never, never, never shall be slaves! Rule, Britannia! Britannia, rule the waves! Britons never, never, never shall be slaves!

Or the favorite one:

God save our gracious Queen Long live our noble Queen

God save the Queen! Send her victorious, Happy and glorious, Long to reign over us, God save the Queen!

The statements that had the greatest impact on our impressionable minds were: “Britons never, never, never shall be slaves” and “Long to reign over us.”

These songs were sung by millions in the colonies of Africa, Asia, the Americas, and the Caribbean. We sang both of these statements while we were slaves and subjects of the imperial powers. “They would never be slaves” while we were enslaved at the time we sang. Can you imagine the psychological implications?

The results of this experience was independent nations led by and composed of peoples who were robbed of their sense of self, self-worth, self-confidence, and belief in their abilities to lead. Most nations that are products of this colonization-mental conditioning have struggled and continue to struggle with the leadership issues.

It is ironic that the former colonizers and imperial powers blame and accuse these new, developing nations for their lack of effective leadership, when in fact they created the poor leaders who often govern these nations.

Colonization and imperial oppression throughout history resulted in the failure to mentor, develop, cultivate, and produce leaders. The oppression that permeated the American society had the same result. The Found-ing Fathers of America were products of the society that perpetrated colonization and the philosophy of superiority through domination. Hence, the slave trade thrived in the early years of the Federation of the United States of America, and the formally oppressed peoples of the American society— such as