Episode 5: “You Gotta Pay to Play”- Kobie Wilkerson

This week's Leadership Tidbits with Coach Tee Wilson features L. Kobie Wilkerson a.k.a L. Kobie Da Wiz. He is an award-winning author, poet, speaker, presenter, storyteller, edutainer, master teacher, and powerful transformer of schools and organizations. Kobie works with schools and organizations where it is his goal to see them systematically operate at their best, so they can effectively impact those they serve. 

Mr. Wilkerson has a B.A. in Education and a B.S. in Sociology from Kentucky State University. He obtained his Masters in Education Administration from Kansas State University. Kobie is a graduate of the Les Brown speaker training program and was also selected as a South Carolina Educational Policy Fellow, a program of the Institute for Educational Leadership out of Washington, D.C. Kobie has taught in Topeka, Kansas and Cincinnati, Ohio (where he was born and raised). During his time in Cincinnati he founded Camp Gye Nyame, a summer camp that focuses on reading, writing, and critical thinking skills. He has presented in South Africa, and most recently participated in a Kenyan delegation put together by Utengo, whose goal is strengthening impoverished Christian churches and schools so that they become places of healing and restoration for Kenyan youth. 

Currently Kobie serves as chief consultant of the Love II Learn Educational Group and Love II Learn Music where they work to empower teachers to engage students to transform our world through literacy and music. He is also President of Love II Learn Books and CEO/President of the newly founded Love II Learn Foundation. Kobie has a passion for relationships and personal development, and a sincere desire to see all who he comes in contact with become their very best.

Kobie came on the show more than ready to share not only advice on how to be successful, but also what shaped him into the teacher and leader he is today. 

Some advice that Kobie told us that he gives the kids he advises is this, “I tell them that who you are at this present moment is not who you're going to be in a future moment, which is why trusting yourself is so important because you do what you know is best at that time, at that moment. So I tell them you know what you know until you know something else.” Kobie reminds us as well that as we push and strive for more out of life, we can only really control two things: effort and energy.

 For those of you who have been searching for strategies for thinking outside the box and reinventing yourself, Kobie gave you this piece of advice, “If you do what you've always done, you'll get what you've always got. Whatever you want is going to cost you something, you have to decide whether you're willing to pay for it. Be willing to do more to get what you're going after, if you don't have a bull's-eye you don't have a target, trust the process, find some mentors or coaches and don't be afraid to pay to be connected to those mentors and coaches, and be willing to learn and not just try."