Category: Life

You Are The Prize

“That’s the juice, baby/Yo, I’m feeling the juice in my mouth” – Marc Rebillet (Work That Ass For Daddy)

The curse of confidence is that lots of intelligent, talented and evidently qualified people don’t have it, and instead wallow in doubt. It’s usually the dumb ones that have it in spades.

I guess that’s the beauty of the universe. An uneven distribution of everything.

But who writes these rules?

While the rest of the world is overdosing on low self-esteem, having supreme and total confidece in yourself (what I call supreme shithousery) is an unshakable belief in yourself and your abilities, especially in uncertain times.

Confidence is not in possessions or looks or sheer brilliance. Beauty like talent is as common as table salt.

It’s acknowledging your doubts, not as barriers to your greatness and excellence, but as buffers to remind you of your human infallibility.

Everyone has doubts, but yours don’t make you. Because you’re the fucking prize!

Act like it!

Are You Good Enough Or Nah?

“I might be too strung out on compliments/Overdose on confidence/Started not to give a fuck and started bearing the consequence” – Drake (Headlines)

It’s either I suffer from a serious case of self-confidence or I probably overdosed on all the positive affirmations my mother showered on me as a child or being forced to thrive in environments where just being good was never enough (you had to be great) did a number on me.

I regularly see people talk about impostor syndrome and I understand.

The hardest thing is standing in front of a group of people to defend yourself or your work.

There’s a long history of technically adept creatives who have had to employ the services of sales and marketing experts just to help them communicate.

This is not to say that communication experts haven’t earned their merit. Or public relations and talking to people is a walk in the park. Far from it!

But too many people are unable to communicate, not because they don’t know what to say (they always they claim they don’t), but because they are insecure.

They are too wrapped up in themselves and the probability of failure and so they’d rather swallow whatever it is they have on their minds than spew it so others can judge.

Many absolutely qualified people get into a room and are scared to death to defend themselves.

I remember getting a call in 2019 to teach Spanish. It was a recommendation by a bosom friend to an acquaintance.

The only Spanish I knew was off Duolingo, Google Translate and checking random words on the Internet. Even the strength of his recommendation was based on seeing me practice it leisurely during our final years in university.

I was stuttering and sounded so unsure of myself while talking to the lady who needed my services. Until she asked me, “can you really do it?”

I knew it was now or never and I had to catch myself and reply in my most confident and reassuring voice: Yes, of course!

But I didn’t think I was great. I actually said yes for two reasons:

1. I knew I was good. Maybe not good enough. But if someone thought I was good enough to earn their recommendation, then there was room for improvement.

2. I was willing to work hard to not let myself or my friend down. Which means I knew I had to improve.

Above all, when asked for what I’d be charging, I quoted a price that reflected some level of expertise.

Saying that particular yes opened a whole vista of opportunities for me. I wonder what my life would be like today if I hadn’t.

All the amazing people I’ve met on that journey. The amazing experiences too.

Not a very popular quote by any means, but Dr Pfeffer says, “If you are good enough to get in, you obviously have enough talent to do well, regardless.”

Although there’s a very small caveat to the above quote: You have enough talent, yes. And that’s why you got in.

But, talent is never enough.

Which means you’ll be needing more or less of whatever brought you this far to sustain you. That’s where smart decisions, work ethic, collaboration etc, come in.

I tell myself the same thing I tell myself whenever I’m approaching a woman: She’s probably as shy and insecure as you are.

There’s no need to have a Cinderella in glass slippers moment and flee.

Tell yourself this same thing when you stare at opportunities in the face: She (opportunity) is probably as shy and insecure as you are. So, why not?

If for any reason you’ve been invited to any room, then assure yourself you absolutely have every goddamn right to be there. Goddammit!

Compromise

I’m tryna do it all tonight/I got plans I got a certain lust for life, and as it stands/Everything is going as right as it can/They tryna shoot down my flight, before it lands – Drake (Lust For Life)

Compromise

A most beautiful word.

Also, a most confusing.

Say it under certain conditions and the idea will be a stance of resignation and giving up.

Say it under certain circumstances and the idea will be a corruption of the soul.

But many people miss the idea of how important compromises are…under certain situations.

To achieve anything meaningful in life, there has to be a room for compromise.

Business, relationships, politics, and the entire mosaic of human existence.

Compromise.

A beautiful word.

Also, a most confusing.

Does It Ever End? I Wonder

“Do you even remember what the issue is/ You just trying to find where the tissue is/ You can still be who you wish you is/ It ain’t happen yet/ And that’s what the intuition is/” – Kanye West (I Wonder)

It’s 3 am and I’m wearing an oversized Polo Ralph Lauren shirt, cooking spaghetti and listening to Labi Siffre and Billy Joel.

Five months ago, I was sitting in a danfo with tears in my eyes and listening to this same songs.

I was battling an eviction notice.

What’s funny was after bawling my eyes out, I got home and drank about half a bottle of red wine I’d been gifted at work with a big loaf of brown bread (very Italian Mafia, I know) while playing a slew of love songs.

The combination of alcohol, gluten and sweet nothings was somehow enough to numb the pain.

I won’t really advise anyone to try this because instead of waking up the next day with a clearer head, I woke up and wolfed down what was left from the night before. Bread and wine together.

I casually made a joke that morning about having a drinking problem which made a friend laugh so hard.

But at that moment I somehow understood how people’s lives spiral downwards while they sink deeper and deeper into depression and alcohol and substance abuse.

Not sure anybody starts out wanting to be an alcoholic or a drug addict. Life just happens.

You try so hard to escape from your problems, but the truth is life is just one long series of problems. You are either in one, getting out of one or about to enter one.

And so it’s easy to be melancholic and throw in towel when it feels overwhelming. But what’s funnier is if you find some way to hold on, it always gets better.

But you’ll always have new problems.

Today might be tuition or rent. Tomorrow might be stubborn kids or a cheating spouse. It never ends.

Yesterday, I heard someone I admire so much telling his story about how he went from living in a house without windows and doors to buying the place.

But I’m also sure he has some new problems that aren’t related to shelter.

I don’t either.

And that’s why five months later I’m lounging in my house and about to eat my world-class spaghetti. I’ve got a shit ton of work to do, newer problems that need my attention, responsibilities, dreams to birth to reality, and a life to live.

Today is not Sunday and I have no idea why I’m writing this, but I just thought I should tell you that whatever it is you are going through, it always gets better. Always, always.

And stay away from drugs, kids. And drinking half a bottle of red wine.

The Small Difference

“Please, move with intent/Don’t leave it all to chance” – Show Dem Camp (For A Minute)

There’s something beautiful about luck.

It’s an irony.

Lots of successful people rarely put their success down to luck.

The things that come to mind when you quiz them are hardwork, persistence, perseverance, courage and all the beautiful words found in self help books.

Those with a spiritual or moral inclination would say God.

Not necessarily as a sign of humility. But a subtle way to gloss over whatever explanation is expected from them.

Luck sounds too fickle. Too pedestrian.

Whereas those who have been hard done by life wish they had more luck. Or maybe just a little.

It’s a fact you can create your own luck – good or bad – through the decisions you make on a daily basis.

But then what about the things you have no control over?

What’s even crazier is when bad things happen, and they push you to a better place.

Beautiful serendipity!

The very tiny margin that luck occupies.

But when you magnify it, it’s bigger than everything.

It could be timing. It could be good fortune. But in hindsight, you discover that if they never happened, you might never be where you are in the present.

I’ve had some really bad days. But then again, I look back at those days, and I’m tempted to say I’m happy they happened.

The lessons.

The gifts.

The unexpected.

I’m grateful for them.

But maybe a way to show gratitude would be if we all accepted the power of luck.

Because unknown to us, most of the time, luck is really the differential.

But then again, you make your own luck sometimes.

You

“If you believe in God/One things for sure/If you ain’t aim too high/Then you aim too low” – J. Cole (January 28th)

Dreams are dreams until you put them to work. Everyone has dreams. It’s cheaper than salt and more common than sand. And so the onus is on you to make it happen.

“Your success depends upon you.

Your happiness depends upon you.

You have to steer your own course.

You have to shape your own fortune.

You have to educate yourself.

You have to do your own thinking.

You have to live with your own conscience.

Your mind is yours and can be used only by you.

You come into the world alone.

You go to the grave alone.

You are alone with your inner thoughts during the journey between.

You must make your own decisions.

You must abide by the consequences of your acts.

“I cannot make you well unless you make yourself well,” an eminent doctor often tells his patients.

You alone can regulate your habits and make or unmake your health.

You alone can assimilate things mental and things material.

Said a Brooklyn preacher, offering his parishioners communion one Sunday: “I cannot give you the blessings and the benefits of this holy feast. You must appropriate them for yourselves. The banquet is spread; help yourself freely.

“You may be invited to a feast where the table is laden with the choicest foods, but unless you partake of the foods, unless you appropriate and assimilate them, they can do you no good. So it is with this holy feast. You must appropriate its blessings. I cannot infuse them into you.”

You have to do your own assimilation all through life.

You may be taught by a teacher, but you have to imbibe the knowledge. He cannot transfuse it into your brain.

You alone can control your mind cells and your brain cells.

You may have spread before you the wisdom of the ages, but unless you assimilate it you derive no benefit from it; no one can force it into your cranium.

You alone can move your own legs.

You alone can use your own arms.

You alone can utilize your own hands.

You alone can control you own muscles.

You must stand on your feet, physically and metaphorically.

You must take your own steps.

Your parents cannot enter into your skin, take control of your

mental and physical machinery, and make something of you.

You cannot fight your son’s battles; that he must do for himself.

You have to be captain of your own destiny.

You have to see through your own eyes.

You have to use your own ears.

You have to master your own faculties.

You have to solve your own problems.

You have to form your own ideals.

You have to create your own ideas.

You must choose your own speech.

You must govern your own tongue.

Your real life is your thoughts.

Your thoughts are of your own thinking.

Your character is your own handiwork.

You alone can select the materials that go into it.

You alone can reject what is not fit to go into it.

You are the creator of your own personality.

You can be disgraced by no man’s hand but your own.

You can be elevated and sustained by no man save yourself.

You have to write your own record.

You have to build your own monument – or dig your own pit.

Which are you doing?”

– B.C. Forbes

It all depends on you.

Life Path

“When the lights shut off, and it’s my turn to settle down, my main concern
…promise that you will sing about me“- Kendrick Lamar (Sing About Me, I’m Dying of Thirst)

Two weeks ago, I had a rather interesting conversation with an old friend.

It was an hour-long and we talked about copywriting, maturing, growth and life generally.

For a rookie copywriter who hasn’t had much luck with sales letters, I was really surprised by how much I managed to break down the idea of copywriting to him. I was even more surprised he thought about me when he needed an explanation about copywriting.

He never knew I was a copywriter. And that’s something lots of people (even folks close to me) don’t know either.

I’m just 25 but it feels awkward when I listen to someone narrate an experience in their lives and somehow I know what that experience is like. I can relate!

Sometimes I’m concerned my ability to understand what they are going through might be performative.

Nowadays, it’s such a fulfilling experience for certain people who thrive on calling other people out. For whatever reason, it’s really easy to feel slighted nowadays.

So, even when relating to people, you have to be aware of the fact that you are walking a thin line.

A thin line that can get blurred at the slightest provocation or feeling of injustice.

But then again, when I think about these experiences, a part of me thanks God heartily for them. Maybe this is why old people seem to understand life so much and can offer advice accordingly.

Maybe I’m just an old soul.

Or maybe I’ve had to feel these things just for the greater purpose of understanding and empathy. And help others in any way I can.

Maybe if we all had an idea of what people have been through at certain points in their lives we could understand them better. Or maybe not.

It’s easy to discount experiences which you’ve never had.

That’s why I believe that every single experience I’ve had weren’t just mine alone. They were meant to be shared.

Shared to encourage, inspire, educate, teach and motivate others. And I believe that should be my guiding principle going forward.

I think I finally found my life path.

Happy Fathers Day

“Don’t want him to be hated, all the time, judged/Don’t be like your daddy that would never budge” – Kanye West (New Day)

I have no idea why I spent most of this morning listening to New Day off the Watch The Throne album.

Since I could remember I’ve always had a supersized ego although things have really toned down since I turned 16. So, hearing a self-proclaimed egomaniac like Kanye West on a Letter To My Unborn Child-Esque song say something like “I’ll never let my son have an ego/He’ll be nice to everyone, wherever we go” and then go on further to show the dark side of egoism hits quite different.

I remember some years ago, about five or six years, my father bought me a Troy Polamalu Pittsburgh Steelers jersey.

I refused it.

My excuse was that it wasn’t my size, but the truth is we were in the middle of an argument and I was trying to make a point.

I was angry at my father and if I couldn’t put it into words, what could have been better than rejecting a gift? Or so I thought.

What’s funny is in my lifetime I’ve seen very few NFL jerseys that weren’t oversized.

In five weeks time, it will be 3 years since my father died.

Most of the memories I have is him wearing that jersey bent over working. I can’t get it out of my mind.

The biggest sore point for me is my father never finished primary school but he died a day before I wrote my final exams.

For someone who placed a serious premium on education, the strangest punishment fate could hand him was not being alive to see his first child graduate university.

I’ve never been really one to eulogize men because I believe that just like humans even the greatest of men have flaws. But when I think about everything my father had to face in his lifetime; a civil war, limited education, crazy financial responsibility, frail health, being orphaned at a tender age, carrying three generations of family and an entire community on his back, that man is forever a legend in my eyes.

It’s crazy we had a fractious relationship just like most first sons with oversized expectations and responsibilities have with their fathers, but what is ironic is that when I really think about it, I’m my father’s son true and through. We both had a deep-seated love for family, community, football, inability to handle our liquor and spotted bald heads😂

I have very few regrets in life, but one of them is not accepting that jersey. And the fact that we can never watch a Pittsburgh Steelers game together or me dreading to come back home whenever Chelsea didn’t win a match because he would heckle me to no end is quite painful.

Never let ego ruin a good thing.

So, Happy Fathers Day to all fathers living or dead, and especially the young men who were forced to become fathers at a very tender age. I understand because I’m a father nowadays 😁

Happy Fathers Day to Okoro Sunday Innocent. Am I a pussy nigga if I wish you could be alive to hold me like this sometimes? 😭

Coronavirus Or Yahoo Yahoo: Which Is The Bigger Pandemic?

“Partially functional, half of me is comfortable/The other half is close to the cliff like Mrs Huckstable” – J. Cole (Too Deep For The Intro)

Nowadays every young Nigerian between the ages of 16-29 knows someone who knows someone who knows someone doing Yahoo.

It’s not even up to six degrees of separation anymore.

It’s not just an elaborate network. It’s a fucking industry!!!!

Oh, y’all thought Nkem Owoh was just spitting rhymes when he said, “419 no be thief, it’s just a game, everybody dey play am?”

Families, religious leaders, business people, hackers, voiceover artists, phishers, scammers, gift card redeemers, skit makers, musicians, BDC operators, people in government, universities, workplaces etc. It’s an ecosystem.

Lots of music artists are fooled by the industry myth that you have to be young to blow. They believe they don’t have time on their hands already. Plus, many of the music artists they idolize and grew up on peddled drugs and bragged about it on songs.

To them, fraud is just like whippin crack by the stove.

After all, Jay Z came out of the crack game alive and is a billionaire nowadays. So, why not?

Plus, the Music industry is a fucking expensive industry.

You could feel the pain on Industry Diary where Erigga said, “You say make I shoot video for 2 million with Clarence, which show upcoming dey do?/How you want make we balance?”

It’s easy for DJ Khaled to say things like “start a record label, and sing yourself.” Na person wey never see food chop talk less of to afford studio session wan sign himself?

Should we talk about laundering fronts?

All the record labels? Or is it Nollywood people that produce movies in a bid to launder money?

Abi the pastors wey dey pray for protection for Yahoo boys? E.K.Gwuru!!!

What EFCC shows us is even smokes and mirrors.

The easiest thing is to blame guys like Naira Marley who are unpretentious at least and label them as bad influences.

No be every Yahoo boy dey carry dreadlocks or dye their hair or wear dirty jeans or get tattoos or wear stud!!!!

Some of the people you are twerking for wey dey barb low cut and fade dey wear suit and tie na premium Yahoo boys. As in deep tissue Yahoo!!!!

Went to a bar one time to watch football when I was living in Ibadan.

Boys choke everywhere dey design fake Wells Fargo cheques.

You have Nigerians even in war-torn countries in the Middle East running scams.

Some people wey dey go school for Cyprus and China sef dey read part-time dey pick full-time.

People move to the abroad or other African countries when picking gets harder here. Abi how the Wells Fargo credit card go work if your guy no get connect for Yankee?

Tech people sef. Web designers. Graphic designers. Red Hat. Black Hat. White Hat. All of them na Yahoo red cap chief. There’s almost no line to blur things anymore.

Even bank staff that release sensitive information to these guys. Attend any bank’s graduate training school and you’ll hear stories.

Yahoo Yahoo even has an apprenticeship system.

Well-to-do people run production lines by picking up young guys and gifting them laptops and Internet data while feeding them and taking care of some of their basic expenses.

In exchange, they collect percentages whenever these guys pick. E be like record label and royalties.

You even have relationships/marriages that are Yahoo Yahoo partnerships.

The husband/boyfriend is the scammer and the wife/girlfriend is the voiceover artist.

You see 15, 16 year olds holding JAMB past questions on one hand, while replying client with the other.

When I moved into where my apartment newly, I introduced myself as a writer to my neighbors who asked what I did for a living.

I don’t even blame them for their skepticism when they come back late at night and see me through my window pressing laptop. Them no dey write Yahoo for face naa 🤷‍♀️

The Vice Principal Admin of the FGC I attended had a favorite saying he always quoted whenever he wanted to announce Friday Labour.

“There is dignity in labour.”

But how can Bro Jide who earns 40k working at GTB while wearing one suit, tie and one shoe tell his friends doing Yahoo that are calling him to hang out at Elegushi during the weekend that there is dignity in labour?

It’s okay to live in denial and act like we haven’t seen any of these things. After all, ignorance is bliss.

The same way women on here say all men know someone or have a friend who has sexually assaulted a woman before and they did nothing about it and we keep denying it is how we will keep denying this Yahoo matter.

And it’s also time we dead the Yahoo Boy narrative. Girls sef na fraudsters too.

I’m black. I’m Igbo. I’m Ebonyi. I’m in the minority of minorities. And so I understand how easy it is to judge people by stereotypes.

It’s easy to say not all Nigerians are fraudsters until you know someone whose entire savings has been wiped by a supposed Nigerian Prince. That’s when you might probably understand.

Even local Yahoo dey. There are black magas too. No be only white people dem dey scam.

As a country, we are currently battling the coronavirus pandemic while battling with an unending governance pandemic.

My biggest prayer is just in case we manage to fix our governance after defeating Corona, make Yahoo Yahoo pandemic no chop us by then.

Because? E. B. Things!

People say things like “It’s not fraud, we are only taking back what they stole from our ancestors”

The same way the African American community used survival to justify selling drugs to each other.

Look at how much it destroyed them. Na fraud go kill us like this!

‘Taking back what they took from your ancestors’ but you don’t only scam white people, you also defraud African Americans and people of other ethnicities too 🤡

The Book of Friends

I got a lot of friends to come up off the strip for me/The same ones that’ll come up off the hip for me – Drake (Crew Love)

I see lots of posts about fake friends and whatsoever and sometimes I’m pressed about what most of you really mean.

I think I’ve had some of the best friends anyone could ask for.

The classic hymn says, “Count your blessings, name them one by one. And it will surprise you what the Lord has done.”

It’s never always about money or financial opportunities. It’s never always about favours or free lunch or partying. The ambit of friendship can never be defined by these things. It’s sometimes much more.

Other times, it’s so very subtle.

If it wasn’t for my YBNL brothers, I’ll probably be a dropout. No disrespect to all the billionaire dropouts, graduating just meant so much to my mother’s blood pressure.

Smooth gave me my first job after graduation. Had me through the first semester of final year.

Somto gave me my first job after NYSC. It came on the day I passed out.

Somto and Smooth came for my father’s burial. That meant so much to me. Still does.

The kind of confidence Charles, Mbelede and Nonso have in me scares me sometimes. Sometimes when I lose faith, that is my guiding light.

Chinex will probably be the best man at my wedding if he doesn’t misbehave. But since he’s a scumbag, that is entirely possible.

Odera is something else. That’s it.

I write a mean CV nowadays but the first CV I swiped was Christian’s. He also gave me my first side gig.

I probably won’t have gotten that bank job if it wasn’t for him and Vincent’s guidance. He made it possible for me to swim in this Lagos.

Vincent is my brother for life. So many ups and downs, but here we are.

In another life, Ebuka would probably be my father. So much wisdom in one body.

Agbor has been a great friend to me and my family. Ziko, Malachi, Agba. Wonderful guys! Held me down at very uncertain times in my life.

God bless you, Prime!

I and Sequence ran a failed business together. Learnt so much from that adventure.

Kcee is still my sounding board for the most awkward ideas. Our phone calls are therapy sessions.

You can’t spell Ibadan without D in it. D is for Destiny.

I don’t know how I got to NYSC camp by 3am, but if it wasn’t so, I probably wouldn’t have met Frank.

My guy Ay gives me so much hope. Hypeman fi life.

Even though I and Sammy don’t talk nowadays. Knowing him was a very special time of my life.

I wouldn’t get in so much trouble if I didn’t know Agha. I’m sure he’ll say the same thing about me too. That man is my brother.

Joel had me during that rough 21 day patch in January 2020. The time I chose nonconformity over normalcy. He didn’t have any reason to, but he did.

ChuChu and Emma gave me somewhere to crash and get my shit together. I’m eternally grateful.

Icebergz always calls me to hang out whenever we are back home. Probably the coolest guy ever.

I’ve known some of these guys since nursery and primary school or secondary school or university. I met some less than 2 years ago. I don’t even talk to some of them nowadays. But one way or another, my story would be largely incomplete without them.

Maybe you don’t really have fake friends. Maybe you are just ungrateful. Or maybe you don’t give your friends reasons to believe in you.

Or maybe you are just the problem.