The Journey so Far - #BringOn2015

In the bus 2 days ago, going to Sabo from Anthony, coming down the Jibowu bridge, I felt a tinge of nostalgia. Jibowu was where I dropped when I came into Lagos for the first time around November last year. I remember looking around the tall buildings, bridges, wide, dual lane roads with plenty, plenty cars all the way from Ojota, in wonderment. I was somewhere between inspired and intimidated.

 I came into Lasgidi to grab my own piece of the pie, on the heels of a very tragic episode of my life that really crushed my spirit and drained my confidence, consequences of my own actions. I had managed to pick myself up and got ready to start something new. I had a dream, an idea I had been nursing for over a year then. All I had was 3 exercise books filled with plans and strategies, the goodwill of my parents and some little cash. I had no experience, no laptop (online business man ni), no team, no idea how to survive in Lagos, and as at 9 PM that night, no place to sleep (I couldn’t connect with my contact). So, just on arrival, I was so discouraged, I started to re-evaluate the whole I-have-a-dream position.

That was a very defining moment for me, just moving into a big city. There are typically 3 ways people deal with this kind of situation. 1.) Give in to the intimidation, sink to bottom or simply settle for a “simple” life, 2.) Hang themselves on pedestals they haven’t attained, packaging and pretending or, 3.) Roll up their socks and work their way up.

Number 1 wasn’t an option; I might as well just crawl back to where I was coming from. Number two wasn’t an option either; I have never been able to understand that lifestyle of falsehood. So I was left with just number 3. The only problem: I didn’t have the slightest idea how to get started, I thought I did, I mean there had to be something in my 3 exercise books, I just wasn’t sure about them anymore.

So the next day and the days after that, I went about making enquiries. In no time, I ran out of cash – Lagos transport does that to you. No other supply was going to be coming from anywhere and I didn’t know how to proceed. The past few days had outlined my inexperience and amateur strategies, the coming days was going to test my already shaking resolve. It was clear that I was a long way off from achieving my target. I didn’t have any idea how the industry worked, I didn’t have a laptop and I had neither enough skill nor resources to proceed. I didn’t have any plan going forward. I didn’t have the know-how capital to formulate any. I read books a lot, so I had some knowledge but I wasn’t quite confident in them, they were untested. Days rolled into weeks, weeks rolled into the New Year (this year) and I still wasn’t moving. I was revved up by the idea and held down by my limitations at the same time, like a car with both the brake and clutch fully pressed down together. I felt this maddening uneasiness every time I thought about this dream I was not still fulfilling. I dreaded that more than the pain of hunger.

I later picked up a job in March, I worked there till end of July and I quit. I had had it. I was done being scared. I was done being confused. I was done being inexperienced. I was done bemoaning low confidence. My 2-year old plans and all the untested knowledge were beginning to suffocate me. I didn’t still have money, a laptop or the know-how but I didn’t care anymore. I was tired of just talking and planning and having very “reasonable” excuses for not doing. I was tired of receiving sympathy votes, people endorsing the notion that “there is nothing you can do.” I wasn’t happy with where I was. I didn’t like the fact that I wasn’t “out there” trying. I wasn’t even positioned in the ecosystem at all, so I wasn’t even learning anything about it. I wanted to try this thing out so badly. I wanted it more than I wanted a steady, comfortable salary. I had seen some of the guys doing great stuffs around and I noticed that 1) they all had challenges and 2) they weren’t really smarter than me. They were simply there every day confronting and overcoming their challenges.

So I quit. I turned defiant. Just like prisoners, I took all my excuses and limitations, stripped them of all their names and beautiful sentimental holds and dressed all of them up in the same “orange overall” that helped me identify them all as the same thing: obstacles! They were all in the way. So I made up my mind to go around or go through every one of them, one way or the other, I was going to get whatever was on the other side.

Since then it has been a fight. I managed to secure a laptop. I worked alone so I had enormous workload – or at least I thought I did. I was determined not to blame myself for failure or at least for not trying, so I gave it everything I thought it demanded. I googled whatever I didn’t know; I refused to blame lack of knowledge/skill. In that blind, defiant approach, I made a lot of misguided and misinformed choices. I prioritized a lot of my tasks wrongly, so I spent months doing the wrong things. Of course, there were a lot of wrongful “convictions”, I forced the “obstacle” prison-uniform on so many helpful advice. I threw a lot of babies away with the bath water, sometimes without bath water. I was charging on like a mad dog.

I have been stretched thin. I learnt to work all night after working all day, non-stop. I turned down 7 job offers, some very lucrative ones too. I gave up so much, so many things I loved to do. I haven’t played the piano in a service or worked with a choir in over a year. I forgot my parents’ anniversary, I forgot my dad’s birthday, totally forgot Asikey, and a number of good friends. My weekends were between 6AM and 2PM on Sundays and I’m back to work.

Now we’re here. Gospoteric is up; both the Wordstore (online softcopy audio message store) and very recently, the Bookstore (hardcopy spiritual and personal development material store). A platform poised to create a new wave of transformation by making Spiritual and Personal Development materials available and obtainable. We are like a newly promoted Premier league side and you can bet on one thing: we’re here to stay! I thank God for bringing us this far. And I thank everyone that has made the journey possible actively or passively; lil brother Akachukwu Obi and the rest of my siblings, Dad and mom, Bishop David Oyedepo’s teachings and Blessings, my life strategist Steve Harris, Judith and Victor Mbanisi, Mr Taiwo, Confy Edolor, Naomi Lucas Blogs' constant inspiration, CCHub community, and the host of you out there. God bless you.

The journey just began and there is a very long road ahead. But the most important thing is that I have stepped up and I’m ready to travel it. I went toe to toe with my greatest fears and only one of us is left standing. On the back of that little personal victory, combined with the anger I feel when I think about all the time I lost cowering in fear, I’m ready to take on just about anything right now. You don’t want to see my plans for next year.

If my 2014 startup journey was a human being, he will have scars on his back, blisters on his palms, cramps on his legs, fire in his heart, God on his side, blood in his eyes and an if-I-catch-you-ehn smirk on his face that clearly says #BringOn2015.

I Am He - #StepUp #ChaseYourGreatness

I AM HE!

In my secondary school, every second term, the school’s games department organizes inter-class football competition. My own class, SS2B, had 27 boys and 3 girls (don’t ask me how). Since only 11 boys make up a football team at a time, I wasn’t exactly eyeing a spot on the team, and there were 20-something other guys in the class who could kick the ball better than me. But I still wanted part of the action, I always do.

With the opening game approaching, I noticed that while the twenty-something boys were looking to make the team, no one noticed that the team needed a coach, so I proclaimed myself the coach. Of course they laughed it off, I didn’t know enough soccer to make the team, who was I then to dictate the chosen 11? Besides, who even takes me seriously? In the spirit of the joke, I started drawing up formations and passing them around. Each one was criticized and tossed aside, but I kept drawing up more.

On the day of the opening game, we were up against our noisy rivals and classmates, SS2A. The twenty-something hopeful boys showed up on the field wearing the jersey our class had agreed on. Five minutes to kick-off, there were still about 12 people on the pitch instead of the required 11. Somehow, the rest had come to accept that they couldn’t start.

Then something amazing happened, all 12 of them plus the rest that had backed out, somewhere around 50 eyeballs turned to YOURS TRULY to pick the team. It was as though the world stopped, I couldn’t believe it. These guys didn’t take me seriously. They rubbished my formations, now they want me to pick the team?

Looking back now, I think they pushed it to me because no one wanted to be the one to tell someone else that he wasn’t going to be playing, that is the unfortunate job of a coach. So quickly, I just pointed at the smallest guy there and asked him to come off the pitch. Coach had spoken!

We lost that game 2-1. Through the rest of the competition, my formations were mostly popular opinion. We kept pushing on like that, winning every other game till we got to the finals. We met the same SS2A but we beat them to the trophy. I got a medal that day and till this day, I still take credit for leading the team to the inter-class victory (Keshi takes credit for the Nation’s cup too, doesn’t he) and my classmates still laugh at the thought of me being Coach.

Life doesn’t hand anything to you. Sometimes you just need to step up and claim things for yourself; responsibilities, opportunities, victories and accompanying glories. According to this article by James Clear,Chosen Ones mostly choose themselves. Even when people seem to be divinely appointed for a moment, or opportunity seems to just pull over, you still choose to step in and take the ride.

We spend most of our lives being appointed responsibilities and being told what to do and when to do it. Boarding school bells told us when to wake up, the timetable told us which classes to attend, the boss tells us how much salary to take home and when to be promoted. But the things that really matter, like defining your identity, you alone have responsibility for that so stop waiting for permission.

Half the time, people who people who step up don’t feel like it, they don’t even know the first thing about it. But it’s not about what you know or how you feel, it’s all about what you want and how badly you want it. So, in the words of Steve Harris, #ChaseYourGreatness .