Loyalty, the feeling of incredible trust in someone that bonds beyond mere words but visible action. I have been reviewing my loyalty programme for a while now. I have come to question myself about why am I loyal to some people? Won’t my loyalty be betrayed? Did I give out my loyalty too easily? Is it still worth it to be loyal to that person?
In this modern day of people selling out, sadly you cannot buy loyalty, to an extent that is. Ideally, loyalty comes from something mad trust in someone who has more ways than one shown selflessness towards you.
Few months ago, I saw the show Narcos, based on the life and terms of Pablo Escobar Gaviria. Yea! that’s his third name. There are several lessons to be learnt from that show but one that I particularly got me the most.
Firstly, the drug business is insane, in terms of the money been made and how much henchmen made. Escobar had the loyalty of his men right from the early days. Looking at the story been told, he was nice and warm individual.
He greeted people with respect, conducted himself in a dignifying manner, the only problem was that he strictly dealt in illegal stuffs, contraband. Before the cocaine days, when he was just a smuggler from episode 1, he had his ways with law enforcement, always been their friend and knowing what kind of gifts to give them to sway them in his direction.
Another highlight of that movie from me was when his shipment was interrupted and he had to go to the Police station, the police guy wanted more money than usual that they agreed for shipment to pass through without interruption.
What he did next surprised me, I’m not sure of the amount, just say for example, the police officer wanted to re-negotiate to $300,000 for their usual business to resume because he was told by one of Escobar’s henchmen that the shipments were more valuable than what he was offering them as bribe. Escobar offered to increase to $1,000,000 but on one condition, the condition was to tell him who told the Police guy that the shipments were more valuable than what he had been giving them previously.
He sensed there was someone whose loyalty was in question and offered $700,000 additional just to fish out this person. For a relationship or an endeavor that requires more than one party to be optimum and live to its potential, there has to be loyalty. It is loyalty that doesnt allow henchmen sell out their boss despite various torture techniques. It is loyalty that makes soldiers die rather than reveal information of their country to people who capture and torture them.
In my opinion, loyalty is earned not bought; you gotta do something that shows me that you’re loyal to me. Like I wrote earlier, I have a friend who has been with his girlfriend for a long time now because she stayed through with him when he was ill.
For him, that’s loyalty, its not because she drops the pussy anytime he wants, the singular action of been there when he needed her the most, through his struggles gave her the loyalty.
Most times in the workplace and life, depending on how you meet the person, trust can be given, he might give off a certain vibe that makes trusting easy. He might look like a man of his words, that might be what has swayed you or preferably his body language.
I’m gonna digress a bit, there is this new thing that I have noticed and its something that came to fore with this new administration called “Body Language”. It has been in existence for a long time but this new government has made it popular, all you hear these days is the President’s body language. One curious question, how do you perceive this gawd-damn body language, is it the President’s eyes that you look at? How he moves in the chair when an issue is been discussed, or what he is says? Please, can someone help me out here. What is going on? Why can’t we get more information about something by the President talking about it rather than a secret code of body movement that we have to study closely.
These people that interpret this body language, how do they do it? Is there a school where you can study body language, do you write it down in short hand or long hand, where do you start picking up the cues from, his shoulders, to his hands, how he crosses his legs, the movement of his neck? Please help me.
Now back to issue of loyalty, I have noticed that the people who have more loyalty are the bad guys, they’ve got more of it than the good guys. From instance, in the new show, Billions, Damian Lewis (Brody from Homeland) plays Bobby Axelrod, an ambitious hedge fund manager who everyone know is shady but no one can any material evidence to nail him. If you’ve not seen that show and intend to, you might as well skip this paragraph. His people are so loyal to him even unto death, his sold a dummy to the DA’s (District Attorney) office, he knew one of his staff was dying of cancer and then he planted him as an informant for the D.A, he had the timetable of how long his staff had to live and planned it meticulously till the man died before he could be prosecuted or give off any incriminating evidence.
Where can you buy such loyalty where a man dying can sell you the last of his days to help you get out of trouble?
Truth is bad guys know how to make people work for them, and one of the most glaring ways to do that is by using money. The world is filled with poverty, introduce money and affection, and a teeming crowd will be loyal until death for you.
Back to my analogy of Escobar, during his reign in Columbia, he once said anybody that kills a policeman will get $1,000,000. Pablo kept a journal of this and paid everyone as at when due. Another baron, El Chapo, the leader of the Sinoloa cartel is also another person who knows how to buy people off.
According to Business Insider, his second escape cost him around $50 million. Imagine the obscene amount that costs. El Chapo and these other guys are loyal to the people around them with what they had, which was money.
These guys are bad guys, they don’t care how much it costs, the end for them justifies the means, same for Bobby Axelrod, because of how much they use their money, it eventually turns to loyalty. No one has given away Axelrod at least not yet.
The lack of loyalty thereof also bothers bad guys, another example of distrust happened towards the end of the season of Narcos, that led to all the wahala that worried him till his death. He put some of his most trusted henchmen as bosses, two of them when he was going to prison, self built and no authority encroaching prison.
They visited him in prison one time and he had heard that they were scheming money away from him and stashing them in the ground, he was angry. Feeling that they weren’t scared of him anymore and were doing as they pleased. He killed them and barbecued them, I don’t know if he ate them but that distrust cost him everything because the government couldn’t allow that happen, and he went on the run since then.
Loyalty and trust go hand in hand, some bosses legal or illegal feel too entitled to what they have and this becomes their downfall. I know of a company that makes tonnes and tonnes of money but a manager of that company can’t get a N1,000,000 loan from the same company. Now, imagine if that person was fingered in #DasukiGate, wont the manager go there and tell how the money came in and went out till his boss goes to jail.
Although, the downside to working with evil guys is that you might get killed when you fuck up, in normal setting, you’ll just get fired, and depending on what you’ve done, you might not be able to get another job in this part of town but other than that? You’ll live a full life working for yourself or someone else.
For me, I trust easily, once I see you and speak to you, I can trust you but the loyalty has to be earned, I aint just loyal to people like that, you gotta show me you’re worth been loyal to.
Anyway, my point with this is to help you review your character today, are you worthy of been loyal to? Do you treat your inferiors with disdain? Does it all end with you? Are you the kind of business that when there is no money, everyone knows but when the money arrives, its director bonus cheques that are going around, nothing for the boys?
There was a story I heard once about a bank MD who was to be arrested by EFCC, and from the door at the ground floor, people made calls to the MD’s floor informing them of the arrival of the authorities, the I.T guys dashed up quickly and proceeded to format his system. The system format was in process by the time the EFCC operatives got upstairs.
I think it’s a dodgy/bad guy thing, anyway, let me let you get back to whatever you were doing before opening this link.
You should endeavor to earn people’s trust because you don’t know when you might need, most times loyal people will save your life and you wont know it because they wont tell you.
The last question I have for you is, are you sure you’re loyal to the right people in life, love and career or more importantly, how loyal should you be?
Take care!
‘Deolu
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