Dear, I hope this email finds you well…If you missed this online, this past week I’ve had such an incredible opportunity speaking at the 51st St. Gallen Symposium in Switzerland (St. Gallen Symposium is the world’s most relevant organization and platform for cross-generational dialogue).Not only was I speaking alongside some top European business and media gurus, I’ve also been hand selected and given a seat as one of the 200 ‘Leaders Of Tomorrow’ which celebrates young professionals with outstanding achievements from various fields across the world (image below). Although the week has been a busy one, as I sat down, one of the craziest reflections that came to me was about the ‘the ‘ALONE mentality’ (and I’m curious to see how you react to this one)
Around 5 years ago while I was in the second year of university, I remember calling my parents to say I wanted to stop receiving an allowance. I can vividly remember the 10 seconds of silence on phone with my mom and I’m not sure how she processed it at the time. My family isn’t wealthy, I occasionally got some 5k or 7k here and there, and at the time I played music around to feed myself. So when I started learning how to fish for myself in 2018, my first trade-off was to take away all my ‘safety nets’ and it started with that call. I won’t suggest anyone takes this route as I know our experiences would be different, but as I sat down to reflect on that particular experience, a big realization hit me. You see , I discovered one of the little reasons I was able to grow further from that point, was because I didn’t expect help from anywhere and because of this mentality, I worked my ass off as I knew I had nowhere to run back to. I went to school in the morning, returned home to write articles for a magazine, in the evenings I was in church serving and right after, I stayed up most of the night to use free midnight data bundles to build my online platforms. And I did this every single day for over 4 years.That first year I remember trying to save up just to afford my yearly rents which was my first big goal.
You see my friend, ENTITLEMENT will ruin you of a certain peace that comes with not having expectations from people. And that’s why you must build ‘an ALONE mindset’. It is the mindset that lets you do your stuff like it all depends on YOU ALONE and any support that comes in the process becomes an addition.The second scary part? Sometimes as you grow and become a little more successful, entitlement also grows in the people you love. They’re expecting you to always do THIS and THAT and the day you don’t, they create a scene. My friend, coming from an African like yourself, I want you to know that NO ONE OWES YOU ANYTHING. And when you don’t create expectations, you won’t get disappointed. Nobody on social media owes you any support. No family member owes you financial assistance (no matter how rich they are). No friend owes you anything. A lot of times when we get frustrated with the people around us, it is because we’re expecting too much from them when we’re not a top priority in their minds.
So , keep building your dreams like it all depends on YOU. As you grow on your journey, if support comes–take it and improve your life, but if it doesn’t, keep working, keep praying and keep investing in yourself
The best part is that as you grow and become good and more successful in your thing, there’s a tribe of people who will die heartedly support you, and these are the ones who will do it with no expectations in return
I wish you a good week ahead (and please share this message with someone. Join the Facebook group here)
Internet Entrepreneur | Author | Journalist