BLOOM AND GROW

  I came across my vision board for the year and I laughed hysterically because when I was making plans for 2020, I never would have imagined a year like this.  The Covid-19 pandemic, a passenger plane being shot down,   Kobe Bryant dying in a helicopter crash alongside his young daughter, Breonna Taylor getting shot in her apartment by policemen, Ahmaud Arbery getting killed by white folks while jogging, George Floyd being choked to death by a policeman. The Black lives Matter protests.  The ENDSARS protests. The Lekki-tollgate Massacre. This year has been a lot of things.  However, despite everything that has happened and is happening, I'm grateful to be here.  I'll share lessons I learned this year in another article, but for now, this is my self-audit.                                              Family and Relationship. I hardly visited family members this year because of the pandemic. I can complain about that, but I'm happy about the fact that they are all alive and

I really want you to watch Stephen Dunier's Ted talk, How to Achieve Your Most Ambitious Goals. That's the essence of this blog post in a nutshell.  His Ted talk is actually one of the most important items on my motivational playlist because it reminds me that putting time into work, pays off in the long run. He specifically alluded to the fact that little drops of water make a mighty ocean. That is, even if you spend little time on a task, as long as you are consistent, and you make marginal improvements over time,  you'd achieve your goal.   Again, his strategy is simple. Break down a project into small manageable tasks that you can complete in 20 minutes and once the allotted time is up, you take a break. After which you come back to do some more work which could even be on another project. That is, you work in bouts and take frequent breaks.  Not to take away from the message of this article, but the truth is that this strategy wouldn't work for everyone. Or you mig

I don't really like motivational speakers. They sometimes come across as disingenuine. Just my bias. I guess not all motivational speakers are like this. I mean, I think Mel Robbins and Toni Robbins are great (No, they are not a couple) but I also think that the self-help space is filled with so many "aspire-to-Inspire-to-Perspire" folks.  I mean people who just put words together to gas you up for nothing!  Regardless, I believe in self-development and I blog about this field based on the knowledge I have gained over the years and my own lived experience. But I don't want you to think that my life is perfect because of the things you read on my blog. I'm a work in progress.  This article is a peek into my personal life. So you know some of the things I'm struggling with and the steps I am taking to overcome them.  1. Fear of being alone.  I use the word, "alone" just because "abandoned" is such a strong word. I grew up having best friends

  A few months ago, I invested in some farm slots with Thrive Agric, one of the leading crowdfunding agro-platforms in Nigeria. The maturity date for the investment was October 1st but I'm yet to receive the payout one month after. The company has actually communicated some of the challenges that they are currently facing and I'm hopeful that I would get my money back someday. We are currently engaged via a monthly update meeting with the Interim CEO, Adia Sowho who is helping the fintech navigate the current murky waters.   But I would like to share important investment lessons from this experience:  1. I thought agro investments were insured. But it turns out that the insurance does not protect investors from liability in any way. The insurance is apparently limited to farming operations. So agro investments are just as risky as any other investment.   Right now, I'm consolidating my investments with crowdfunding platforms and re-strategizing my approach to personal fina