Stop Looking for Jobs!

It took me 20 years of working from one place to another to realize that you can never be financially free if you remain an employee.  For shock effect, let me give you an idea of what I am talking about.  I started out working at a very young age of 15.  All of my educational pursuits after my High School was done on part time basis.  By the time I was 22, I had reached the first basic base of Higher National Diploma (HND) almost at par with a B.Sc. from a University. 

As far as I was concerned, the world was at my feet.  I was a senior staff at a multi-national company; Personnel Officer with many pecks.  A few years later, I was poached by a bank and I ended up in the banking industry for 8 years.  By the time I had logged in 20 years of hard labour working from age 15, I did an average check of my total income - all time.  Guess what it came up to: N2,700,000.00 (Nigerian Currency) and in US dollars it came up to $17,647.00!  That was what I was working 8 hours daily and over 40 hours weekly in 20 years!  I looked myself in the mirror and felt sorry for the person I saw standing there.  How was I ever going to become financially free?  At that point, I knew the best thing to do was to quit the job and use my skill set (and I have them in quantum) to create multiple streams of income.

I took a look at myself and I discovered I could write professionally (I had published 3 books and edited tons of publications for other outfits), I had the capacity to train people in management and leadership, I could speak, I have organizing skills and could become an event manager; I am a whizkid on the keyboard - I type more than 100 words per minute - that is a skill set all in a class of its own.  I had over the years acquired skills for professional proposal writing, feasibility studies and general consultancy on how to erect and manage a business.

These were enough to get me started and the first attempt I made at earning income was a consultancy job with a Church.  I was already an ordained minister and it was easy for me to fit into the system.  I had the task of starting their leadership institute and run it in its first few streams; it was done and I was on a monthly allowance for 12 months - the duration of the contract.  During this period, I maintained a client base for training, freelance writing and media consultancy - having also a skill in broadcasting.  By the time I was through with the Church contract, I found another stream of income to develop - eCommerce.  This is a whole world waiting to exploited in our climes and millionaires are being made in their numbers in the Western world.  I am at the moment positioning myself with relevant knowledge in this area.  

Why for heaven's sake should I look for a job again?  I didn't need a capital to do all these.  The best capital I had was the skill set I had developed over the years while working with the different organizations.  While I was an employee, I went beyond my call of duty because I had an inkling that one day I was going to be off the employee status and run my own show.  This made me a valuable employee even though it did not attract rapid promotions.  But wherever I had worked, I left a footprint and a vacuum that is difficult to fill.

Are you a graduate fresh from school?  Don't dream of climbing a corporate ladder, think of building a ladder yourself!  The beginning may be daunting and hard, but would you prefer the comfort zone of a salaried job than a future where you determine when you wake up and when you go on vacation?  Think of the future and pay the needed price today.  Are you an employee slaving it out for someone else?  It is time to put an exit date on the calendar.  

No nation's economy is ever built around salaried employment, but on the strength of the small and medium scale enterprises of that nation.  The GDP of every nation is predicated on the amount of entrepreneurial activities in the country.  Yes, we all cannot be business owners at the same time, but we must aim to own our lives eventually and employ others too.  Make that move today!

Keep Moving!

          It has been observed that a moving train is hardly stoppable by any external force.  However, the train standing still at the station can be prevented from moving if an object is placed in front of the iron steel wheels on the track.  This should teach us that it takes so much energy to get started but very little energy is required to keep moving.

          A lot of people are afraid of keeping a consistent pace because they cannot have the benefit of seeing beyond the next bend.  As a result, they stay in one place to contemplate, consider, analyze and procrastinate.  The journey of life is not like someone who has been to that future you intend to go and then comes back to give you an idea or a clue as to what you should expect.  You might have to stumble into a lot of discoveries yourself.  You have to necessarily discover some things for yourself since your purpose for life is unique and different.  Being scared of moving for not knowing what lies ahead is therefore a journey that may never be taken.  I once heard someone say that “over-analysis causes paralysis”.  

          In the living of a goal-oriented life, you must keep moving even though you might not say for certain what lies ahead.  You might have a clue but you may never be totally sure.  Most of your walk must therefore be by faith in the God in whom you trust and in the reality of what you seek to achieve.

          Sometime in the summer of 2007, I embarked on a journey of 1,550 kilometers to cover Abuja-Makurdi-Kano-Abuja in just two days.  My schedule was to get to Makurdi from Abuja on Saturday morning to visit my father who was bedridden after a minor surgery, speak to a students’ body at the Benue State University for 2 hours and see my siblings in my family house in the same town before hitting the road for Kano the same day.  I left Abuja on schedule and got to Makurdi at 9.15 am.  I sat for half an hour with my dad in the hospital and headed for the family house and spent only 30 minutes there.  I drove to the University campus and spoke from 11.45 to 1.30 pm.  Had a whistle stop over at the hospital to tell my dad I was on my way and eventually left Makurdi at 3.30 pm.  My destination was Kano, nearly 800 kilometers away.

          By the time I arrived Akwanga, a town in Nassarawa State, just 170 kilometers from Makurdi, the car developed a major mechanical problem.  The water pump was leaking, but I never knew what was happening as the temperature kept rising.  I had to keep a jerry can of water in the car to constantly refill the empty radiator.  The speed at which I was travelling had to drop to avoid over-heating the engine.  But I kept moving – even against the advice of a concerned Road Safety Officer who upon learning that I was heading for Kano advised that I pass the night in Akwanga.  The time at this point was 6.00 pm.

          Sensing that traveling through the thick forest road of Southern Kaduna would be disastrous if the car eventually stopped in the middle of nowhere, I decided to take the Jos route and entered Jos, Plateau State in Central Nigeria  at 10 pm.  

          At Jos, comfort zone sense demanded that I pass the night in that city and continue the journey the next day but purpose sense said, “keep moving”.  I had to travel through the lonely Jos-Kano road between 10.25 pm and 2.15 am when I eventually arrived Kano.  If you are familiar with the Jos-Kano trunk road in Nigeria, you may remember the famous Falgori forest known for high profile robberies and stray wild beasts straying from the Yankari Game Reserve just across the border in Bauchi State.  I had to go through tens of check points mounted by security forces to achieve my dream of entering Kano that night.  All these happened because I refused to stop but kept moving.

          You will get to your dream place in life faster than you anticipate if you keep momentum.  Refuse to give up; don’t give in; don’t give out; keep moving towards your goal.

          There is no doubt that you are going to face obstacles, but no barrier is powerful enough to stop a determined and purpose oriented individual.  The force of purpose brought under a determined and focused person will always prevail over any barrier put in front of it.

          Are you being harassed and intimidated?  Keep moving.  Do you have men talking down on you?  Keep moving.  Refuse to get distracted.  Is your business up against some strange attacks by competitors?  Keep moving.  The intention of all these distractive activities are all geared towards making you to abort your journey, but if you keep moving, sooner or later, you will become a celebrated icon and we all shall begin to call you a celebrity.

PS:  The piece is a chapter culled from my yet to be released book "BUSY STANDING STILL - getting rid of organized emptiness".  If you require an advanced e-copy of the full book, I can make it available to you at a token amount.  

Kindly send me an email @ goba_ogwuche@yahoo.com and I will supply you with the payment details you need to make to obtain a full version of BUSY STANDING STILL.