I have always maintained that we live in a "fast n furious" generation where patience is becoming less and less of a virtue. Today you see a 20-year-old guy who thinks not having a Rolls Royce at that age is a failure.  Young adults now long for quick fixes to bypass what they see as challenges. They are willing to fight tooth and nail to get money, cars, fame, etc. Just yesterday, we were greeted by the news of a 21-year-old 300 level UNILAG student who killed a CEO just because of what? Over money? A yearning to belong? She even went ahead after killing him to withdraw cash using the victim's ATM card.  For goodness sake, what does a 21-year-old lady want with a sugar daddy? Who was she trying to impress? Was she in competition with anybody? More so that she has been abusing drugs at this tender age. A beautiful lady as such. One of the virtues God has blessed me with is contentment. Bible says it is a great gain when mixed with godliness. You know, when people pray th...

Inarguably, nothing worthwhile gets done without you being deliberate/intentional about it. Not even living. And this is a pitfall young adults should be wary of. Only those who are ambivalent rely on the rhetorics of luck and charm to achieve something. "Whatever will be will be" is a hoax. What so ever you do not intentionally make be will not be. Unknowingly to people, luck itself is what we make it, not what is thrust upon us. You don't get lucky while sitting on the sofa with arms crossed doing nothing. The harder you work, the luckier you get.  So, being intentional is an act of making our own choices before others' choices make us. It's choosing to create the life you want, rather than having a life, or other people, dictate your actions.  It's taking an inspired action that is in alignment with your words & truth. It's focusing your energy, time, and attention on important things in your life. "Put these abilities to work; throw yourself i...

 I often wonder why people are too bashful and reticent to say they are in between jobs. Is it becoming something like a far-reaching stigma or contempt that one is not good enough? Or being cursed or enchanted? I beg to disagree if it was. We all should know that it has never been a disease to be unemployed. Your present situation does not have to define who you are. That you're a job seeker now does not infer you'll be in this situation forever. Nearly every professional you see today was once in that shoe.  Worthy of note is that we're all going somewhere but we'll never get there on the same day. In other words, we may not score the bull's-eye at the same time. That you are mates does not mean we get employed the same day. Understandably too, God's way is beyond our ken. He will make people some people go before others to prepare a way for others. Some people will get a job first so that they can help others get theirs. So speak up! Tell everyone who cares t...

Everything always seems impossible until it is done. I've had this lingering predilection for the creativity/design niche, howbeit, the thought of not being a computer science graduate kept holding me back. I resolved to shrug it off in 2020 and went all out foraging for those skills.  Excitedly, I have many of them at my disposal now, and the ripple effect on me is evident. Now I know it, skills augment your value. You don't get valuable by mere word of affirmation. Your value is the weight of the problems you can solve and the difficulty in finding a suitable replacement for you.  For those thinking 2021 will automatically roll away the bad experiences you had this year, na lie ooo. Time doesn't heal or transform anything, it is what you do with the time that counts. You'll still get the same result if you do the same thing you did in 2020. No magic about that. Our life does not get better by chance, it gets better by change. You want to get something you never had, y...

Interest can be transient as they come, you know! I was discussing the wane in my feeding habit with a senior friend lately; I that hitherto could singlehandedly gulp pounded yam meant for seven people now finds it less appetizing to even eat. His response that I now have another interest/responsibility that flattens the urge for food is irrefutable; conversely to the time my parents shouldered all responsibilities. The same can be said of our present pursuit for money and relevance. It is not incongruous to note at this point that time comes when looking for money and recognition becomes a shadow of something else: Legacy and Succession. These two things people usually tie to old age; and they give more meaning to one's life and living. However, with life expectancy set to reduce as time goes by, provided those life-delimiting factors are not reversed, many people pass on unexpectedly without having to set a legacy neither a succession. So I think it's wisdom to plan fo...

'Work' and 'job' are two different concepts. Your job is what you have agreed to do for a fixed price. But no one can really pay you enough for your work. Your work is what fulfills you, your life's calling, your bliss. It defines your existence. You may be fortunate, however, to have your job as your work or your work as your job. Jesus knew His work on Earth and this was to provide the answer to the sin question with His death and resurrection. People wanted to give Him a job to become an earthly king. He declined. Many today have lost their work because of the trappings of their jobs. Your job may give you a healthy bank balance but it is your work that credits your life's account. Your job can be taken away but your work is permanent. While doing your job, don't ever lose sight of your work. Whatever you do as a sacrifice on your path that brings joy and hope to others maybe your work. And your job may be a means to accomplishing that. Taking kids off th...

A dreadful disservice you can offer yourself is relinquishing your thinking responsibility to social media (SM). Your mind is too precious to be a dumpsite for every post you stumble upon. Just so you know, the litmus test for you being educated is not in your class of degree but in how well you've trained your mind to think, and the curiosity to learn. Fallen short of this put your degree in question. Absorbing or acting upon without filtering every post on SM will unknowingly but subtly make you find life plunging you into waterloo if you're careless. It is pertinent at this point to know that SM is riddled with more ignorance than wisdom. So consider it expedient you don't patronize or allow every thought to get a foothold in your mind, it doesn't matter the number of likes or who's selling it. Imagine someone coming to terms that being born in Nigeria is a disadvantage already; and that automatically life is leading you 1 - 0. Alas, you see thousands of pe...

One of the funniest narratives of life I have observed is you presuming your friends are living large, and because you aren't in constant contact with one another as hitherto, they probably have abandoned you. You know, possibly, the tendency is high that they also at their own end are thinking you've ostracized them because you appear to be living large and have chosen to remain incommunicado. More often than not, this is far-fetched. Forget about the paparazzi your friends parade on social media; appearance is not always reality. The reality is everyone is still a work in progress. So the onus is on you to work on yourself so you don't get left behind eventually when the harvest is ripe. Moreover, what you need to know is that people are busy and responsibility is piling up. Interestingly, the fact is that a busy person likes those who are busy. Instead of crying foul people are not getting in touch with you, get yourself busy. There may not be a reason for others ...

One of the female presenters on NBC Africa shared how she met her husband. She said when she was an undergraduate, she listed some of the qualities she would want in a husband. Absurdly enough, she also listed a name she would want her husband to bear! Then she met a man whose name was alien to the one on her list. Thank God she didn't rebuff him. It was in getting to know him that she discovered that his middle name, which he didn't often use, was the name on her list! Joseph had dreamt of greatness. But God disguised his greatness in slavery, false rape accusation, and finally, imprisonment. What God wanted to achieve was for Joseph to acquire the skills he would need to function when he finally stepped into greatness! Skill acquisition is heaven's aim during 'disguise' moments! Has it ever occurred to you that the key to your dream position may be disguised in the one you now hold? While at this seemingly lowly position, please apply yourself fully t...

"Commit first to excellence, and everything else will follow" I took interest in a post I stumbled upon on Telegram, captioned "How I got 4 Ph.D. offers in the US with a CGPA of 2.79." Hmm, this will be an intriguing read, I said! I was curious so I decided to read through. According to the narrator, his grade was one of the lowest grades in his graduating class. So I wanted to know how he did it. Incidentally, I don't think there is a more contentious argument than the one on First Class graduates being smarter than graduates of other classes of degree. This has always been a hot zone. "Who First Class help?", you hear them say. To this I've always reacted: everyone is smart, you can't take that away. However, I won't succumb to defend the fact that those who graduated with good grades put in a lot of effort in their study, minus other external uncontrollable factors. Affirmatively, they did, and they deserve the credit! Skimming...

A Newsletter reveals that the founders of the world's five largest companies--Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Warren Buffett, Jeff Bezos, Larry Page--all share two uncommon traits: each of them is a voracious learner; each of them is a polymath. The two traits are also said to be responsible for most of the billionaire's wealth. Meaning from the foregoing, we can deduce that people who detest knowledge, who detest learning are a candidate for poverty. This espouses the assertion that a lot of people in Africa are poor because of a lack of wisdom. Call it wisdom to make wealth, to see opportunities, to create a solution, you're definitely right. Wisdom, as we know, is the right application of knowledge, and the knowledge we acquire as we learn daily. It will interest you to know it is not only poverty, moral decadence, and a dearth of values are likewise gross evidence of society with no commitment to life-long learning. We can easily affiliate this to a number of ignoramuses...

"Be somebody who makes everybody feels like somebody" We live in a world enshrouded by an embedded system of social stratification. Whereas those we presume are at the nadir of social strata often times have become objects of disdain and contempt. They feel no one knows they exist because we ostracize, undermine, and commonize their contributions. Such scenes make me uncomfortable. We made them percept that respect is no longer their lot because we now accord respect according to the whiteness of one's collar job. But in the beginning, it wasn't so.  Respect should not be subjective, as it is a drive towards the egalitarian society we crave. We cannot all become doctors, scientists, lawyers, even accountants. Some people decided to feel the informal sector jobs and they also deserve our respect equally. "Jesus came into this world not a philosopher or a general but as a carpenter. All work matter to God". The Covid-19 scourge has even brought th...

"Change" is not only a constant thing, but it is also the secret to survive in today's world. "Sometimes ago like in the 1960s, If you speak English you are regarded as likely to succeed. People queued up to access you. Then It moved. If you have a university degree. Wow, then that was hotcakes! Suddenly University degree became sachet water. Then it moved to finish with Upper and above. In fact, my uncle called me to explain to me why 2.1 was the requirement for success. After this, it moved again It became what school did you finish? That uncle told me again how I must attend UNILAG. He said they had an interview in his office, where they said candidates that didn't attend Federal University to stand up and go home. Hmmm! What a wicked selection process, but that is life. Then after I graduated it moved again. It's now the skills you have. What can you do? This is where most people are at now. But let me tell you the truth...It has mov...

I have to tell you about my experience yesterday at an event I was asked to speak at. My topic was on Understanding Your Career Trajectory, Beyond Your Degree My talk was about 30 minutes and I took about 15 minutes of questions. Because I had another appointment, I had to leave quickly.  When I was leaving, a young man followed me. He had a career dilemma he needed me to help him solve. You know I have mentioned how much I love solving problems, so as it were, he immediately had my full attention. By now, he was escorting me out of the building, a few steps later, we were waiting for the elevator. I was eager to start our coaching conversation, so I prompted him to go ahead, I asked, 'so what do you do?' He introduced himself, he said he ran his own business, that he was into technology, software development to be precise. Then he added, 'I am 24 years old.' I immediately wanted to steal his youth. Remembering myself at 24, I was full of admiration. ...

Have you ever sojourned to a wonderland? This thing called "skills" will take you there. It is a bundle of amazement. It is everyone's number one asset. When you are bereft of it, you have no asset. It is the 21st Century most sought-after tangible and intangible assets. Little wonder, firms/organizations/companies jostle for it. Skill is not just knowledge because knowledge is just certification. Skill is a demonstrated mastery. It is the praticalisation of theory. That is what makes your "impossibles" someone's "possibles". It is the distinction between novice and expert. Having it or in the dearth of it dictates successes and failures respectively. It makes a million out of a paltry. It turns the once rejected stone into a cornerstone. Just like a talent, it paves the way for the owner. Skills bring relevance. It is a principal thing, in all thy doings get skilled. What are you sk...

"Entrepreneurship is the only way out of poverty" "You can't be rich and comfortable working for someone else" "Entrepreneurs rule the world" It is imperative for you to understand that as a Christian professional, you can't afford to be led by popular slogans, the wisdom or empty philosophies of men! Recently, I was taking a Bible study and a verse in Scripture struck me. "The Lord was with Joseph, and he was a successful man; and he was in the house of his master the Egyptian" Gen.39:2 How do you attach "successful" as a term to someone who is not just in the employ of another man but a slave?! Isn't that divergent to the messages being touted by the 'apostles' of entrepreneurship? It is this entrepreneurship bug that has bitten professionals that would have had great, successful and impactful careers as employees of organizations but have resigned because they want to have founders, ...

Sometimes the people we need to succeed are within our immediate reach, but we can't just find them by an oversight. We often believe if we had known a politician, recruiter or CEO, we could've landed a job by now, but it's that connection to them we lack. The truth is we cannot all get the connection these people. Is like getting the richest 1% of all people connected to the rest 99%. You and I know that is mission impossible. Come to think of it, how about the people you're already connected to, mostly your friends who are already working. I've you ever told them to keep you abreast when there is a job opening where they work or refer you to someone who needs hires?. Oh! You probably didn't know, or it's because you were more brilliant than them in school, thus you think asking for their help is stooping low. That where you're wrong. Research has it that 38% of people get jobs through their friends and relatives, much more than the 26% of thos...

Job seekers do not be troubled. Because you didn't get that offer doesn't make you less. Always remember, not everyone will see your value. Irrespective of this, don't give up. I was once like this in 2016-2017. I was troubled. I wasn't getting any job offer. The ones I got, I didn't make it through. I became scared of the future. What awaits me? vs What becomes of me? Fear of the future ate deep into my heart. What if you take it one step at a time? Perhaps you could live each day as it comes. No one is too wise to be certain of what will happen in the next few minutes. We can only make predictions/assumptions. But one thing is certain, we can live in the moment. That could be all you've got. Instead of beating yourself down by what hasn't happened, Why not defeat the moment? Then go further from there. I have come to a point where I want to live by the moment. Rather than getting soaked in the fear of what may. Because fear is fal...

Just so you know: Nagging your friend "Have you got a job" is kinda awkward; awkward like asking someone "Don't you have kids" "Aren't you married yet". Yes, it can be disheartening & depressing! For them telling you "No" every time you throw up such question at them can predispose them to think they are failures, and unknowingly lead them into despair. You can never wish a difficult moment away with your nagging, it takes proactive sets to draw up a solution. If it's truly your intention to show you care via that, then I say the approach is a misplaced priority you must set right. It is sheer ignorance adding insult to their injury in the name of showing care. I consider it helping your friend with job adverts, career advice, networks, referrals or CV review far more reasonable than your incessant misnomer question. What does doing that mean to them? It tells them as much job position you prescribe to them, the more they beli...

I knew already he would win the role; I stand no chance against him. He came into the reception looking like Dangote’s firstborn. A shiny suit, well ironed and his tie properly placed. He has a very strong aura and presence with a deep charisma. The aroma from his deodorant would get you sniffing loud. He entered the reception and engaged me in a discussion immediately. From his voice, I could sense he had spent some reasonable years in “The Abroad”. He introduced himself and we started talking, damn! the guy is really good, I said within myself. He was called into the interview room first even though I got there before him (maybe because I wasn’t wearing a shiny suit). It took longer than expected and I thought maybe they were signing his offer letter already. Should I kuku be going to my house jejely? I sat down patiently waiting for his interview to end, believe me it took forever. But at last, he stepped out looking very calm. He asked if it’s okay to wait so we could roll o...