Financial Freedom Inspiration Reloaded

If you chase two rabbits, both will escape…

When I read this proverb in “Better than Good”, the Zig Ziglar bestseller I am currently reading, I laughed so much I almost rolled on the floor. Sadly, the joke was on me…

Coming up with a topic for this post has been a challenge for me. After months of inactivity, I am delighted to finally be back to active writing, and blogging.

A lot has happened while I was away. The tsunami in the banking sector, the continued apathy in the stock market and the rush into supposedly safe haven in properties. While I was away, some of my articles were ran in The Guardian on Fridays on Executive Brief, and the responses I received have really got me thinking.

I was away basically because of other projects that took my focus away from active writing for a season. In the process, I have learned valuable lessons in walking my talk, in focusing on one activity at a time.

The time away has afforded my the opportunity to revisit the reason I set up this website, who my audience is, and what I want to achieve. Consequently, I have decided to relaunch the site, with new colours and focus.

The site will now be focused on Nigeria rather than a global audience. The target audience is the working class folks that have abandoned their dreams, and youths that are yet to make the same mistakes.

The most common questions I have been asked revolve round business ideas and source of funds for business start ups. The main focus seems to be making a living rather than living your dreams. The underlying assumption seems to be that making dreams come true is a luxury beyond the reach of everyday people. We have been brought up to settle for less than our potentials and possibilities. In a land of limitless opportunities, citizens are pounding the streets looking for few available jobs, and flocking foreign embassies seeking a ticket to nations in recession, leaving wide open the terrain for foreign nationals, especially from Asian countries to have a free rein.

While the Indians, Chinese and others are taking over the commanding heights of the national economy, Nigerian companies are folding up, while would be industrialists are scared stiff to venture out. Every aspiring entrepreneur is pulled aside by friends and family and lectured on how fool hardy it is to strike out for greatness when one out of ten new businesses fail in ten years. The way forward, they are told, is to bottle their passions, kill their dreams, dust up their CVs and go look for a job. They are regaled with tales of how lagbaja tried it, and had to give up, and with tail between legs, go look for another job. They are told that failure and setbacks are shameful and final. The proud thing to do is to stick to a job, no matter how much you hate it, so far as it puts the proverbial food on the table.

I humbly beg to disagree. I believe and know that every body is somebody, with a God given dream and purpose. Everyone has something to offer humanity, something that will make the world a better place after they are long gone. This is achieved by pursuing ones dreams and fulfilling ones purpose, ultimately becoming what you were born to be, by doing what you were born to do.

The reason for the gargantuan unemployment we are facing today is a simple case of numbers. Too few people are creating jobs, while too many people are looking for jobs. Too many people abandoning their God given dreams and looking for jobs (or holding unto jobs too long), in some instances selling their birthright for a mess of porridge, to assuage temporary hunger. People who should be creating jobs are either holding unto jobs (thereby denying others of that opportunity) or looking for a job.

I’m I saying that it is wrong to work for others?

I am not saying that. I have employees myself. Every dream needs a team.

I’m I saying it is wrong to abandon your dreams and work for others?

Yes, if holding unto a job means abandoning your dreams.

There is a time and season for everything, or activity under then sun. There is a time to work for others, and a time to go mind your business. For some, they start in school, and never work for others even for a single day. For others, they work for others all their lives, and rise to become partners or part owners of the businesses. All well and good, so long as God given dreams come true in the process.

It is very sad if one works for a living all your adult life, and retire poor and tired and full of regrets of what might have been, if one was bold enough to pursue ones dreams.

The journey to the land of your dreams is not a 100 meters dash. It is a marathon, and in some instances, a lifeathon. Narrow is the way, and few that find it. If I can inspire some to come out of jail, go for their dreams, and become employers rather than employees, I would have fulfilled my mission for this website. I would not only have seen my dreams come true, I would have helped others make their dreams come true. Nothing beats that feeling…

Welcome to a new day…