The Audacity of God's Grace: 10 Strategies To Living Your Best Life Now (22 page)

During Abacha’s regime, it is on record that a total of
£
5 billion was reported siphoned out of the country’s coffers by the head of state and members of his family.
At that time Abacha was listed as the world’s fourth most corrupt leader in recent history. The Nigerian government then did not charter any private or indigenous universities or give them accreditation. Everything was being controlled by the military government. Government owned schools and infrastructures dilapidated. Majority of the higher institutions were mostly closed down because of national prolonged strikes by the Labor Unions. It was very difficult to gain admission into Nigerian universities. The glory of civil service was gone as workers, professors, and school teachers will stay away from work because they have not been paid their salary by the military government for months. Corruption and crime was endemic in the tightly military controlled economy and those who challenged the government or dare speak out against the leadership were mostly assassinated or they proceeded onto self-exile to the western world.

You Can Win the War Within

The Nigerian state was in a mess. It was in the middle of these crises that I repented and accepted Jesus as my Lord and personal savior and decided to abandon chasing the dream of being a physician that my father has significantly helped me to nurture. One evening, I came home to tell my father that I was going to study theology at the then Adventist Seminary of West Africa (ASWA), (ASWA had affiliation with Andrews University in Berrien Springs, Michigan and people who completed their educational program at ASWA received their diploma from Andrews university) and become a gospel minister. ASWA later became Babcock University. This sounded thunderous like a bullet to my father’s ears. I could feel the shock as the man became speechless. Before this time, Mr. Obioma Dike, my good friend has introduced me to join him as a Home Health Education Service (HHES) representative in Aba. It was also about this time that I met Pastor Ugochukwu Ahiamadu, my former boss and the publishing director at the Rivers Conference in Port Harcourt. Later, together with Dr. Oyeleke Owolabi another publishing director of mine, we will work together in Lagos (Western Nigeria) when I became the president for the HHES wing for students at Babcock University for two years. HHES representatives’ primarily worked for the Seventh-day Adventist Church as Colporteurs and what I will describe as “mobile health education and lifestyle specialists.” The publishing directors or other designees provided training to those who are qualified to become representatives, before they could start work. The job did not pay as much as it was commission-based, unless the representative was very industrious and employ professional marketing or salesmen strategies. When I first announced to my father my intention to join HHES, my father rebuked me. He told me that night in his master bed room that I should as well forget about that idea.

Convincingly, my father asked me to show him how many people that I know who has worked as a HHES representative who was doing so well with financial success or who has a descent automobile or good residential or commercial properties to their name in town. And the man was right, because all the people that I know before that time who worked for HHES were seriously struggling through life. I told him that I was determined to try, and that I was going to set a different record. From that night, my father vowed that if I disrespect him and abandon pursuing the medical school he has done everything a loving father can do for a son and join HHES as a representative or Canvasser, then, he will withdraw his financial support for my education; in fact the bigger threat was that he will disown me!

Think Differently For Once

As a Jambite, my hope for attending and receiving a university education rested on my parents financial resources. In Nigeria then, almost everyone who went to the universities paid out of pocket. There were no student loans. If you are not being sponsored by your parents or uncles, or cousins, then you must have your own personal income to put yourself through a university education. As I was about to leave my father’s master bedroom that night, he said: if you must do your thing, also make sure you don’t come over to my office in Aba (the old Aba urban, now Aba South Local Government Town Hall was the major civil service headquarters in the Aba metropolis where my father worked as a senior civil servant officer) to embarrass me before my friends. HHES representatives were looked down upon. Majority of them never owned a descent car of their own in those days. They used bicycles and you can hardly count the number of HHES representatives who had motorcycles. A great number of them walked by feet or used public transports such as the taxi or buses. Now, this was the very first time “daddy’s and mummy’s” boy was very “very disrespectful and determined to do his own thing.”

Culturally, many parents helped to determine what their sons or daughters studied in the universities. There were not much people that their parents had the financial resources to send to the university from my village then. In fact, most ladies were given away in marriage after high school (secondary school) or were sent to Aba to learn a trade and here was someone whose parents were determined to send to the University of Calabar or Abia State University to study medicine and he opted to go to the seminary to study theology. It was a very weird or ridiculous idea, almost a taboo!

Tough Times Never Last

As my “war” with my parents, mostly my father who I have bruised his ego ranged on, to my greatest surprise my maternal uncle, “De Chigbu” was invited from my maternal hometown, Umuagu Umu-Nwankwo—a village about 4-5 miles away from Osaa-Ukwu, our village. My father has sent for him to come and talk me out of my “unambitious plan” and talk me into going to medical school as originally planned. In the Nigerian university educational system then, a high school graduate with five credits in mathematics, English, Physics, Chemistry, and Biology and with the required pass mark for the Joint Admission and Matriculation Board (JAMB) was offered admission to study medicine. Unlike the American system where prospective medical students must have completed pre-medics or a first degree in a science-related discipline and complete a medical degree in four years, the Nigerian system of education permitted qualified high school graduates who met the JAMB requirements and five credits in the subject areas to be admitted to study medicine for seven years. After my maternal uncle—Dee Chigbu, my mother’s immediate younger brother whom every sibling of mine including me had much respect for could not talk me into the original plan of going for medicine, I saw that I was for the most part, left to face my fate. The circumstances that dominated my life environment afterwards were unpleasant. But I had much work to do to bring about my own development and to become a better person irrespective of these unfavorable neighborhood that life circumstances wanted to subject me to. I chose faith in the God of unlimited possibilities and not fate due to my circumstances because I understood earlier on in life that because am a creature in the image of God, I am powerful.

STRATEGY NUMBER 7
DOMINATE YOUR CIRCUMSTANCES
& ENVIRONMENT

‘’Faith is a connection with God that comes from knowing His power and resting on His promises to act on our behalf. The effects of faith in God bring health to our minds and bodies.”

—Anonymous

You Are Powerful

Life is about circumstances and realities. What produces them is our environment. This is why life will not hand over to you what you want. Life will only deliver to you, what you demand. Our environments bring about the circumstances and the realities that shape our actions and our ability to live our best life now. How we respond to these realities and circumstances is what makes the big difference. We can become either losers or winners. It’s like the African proverb that says: “if the lion cannot live to tell its story, the hunter wins.” The dominion mandate given to everyone created by God in God’s image and welcomed to share in the economy of God’s grace as we explored earlier in the Christian Scriptures according to the book of Genesis empowered you as an individual to subdue and rule everything in your environment. Although not by coercion, the mandate was given to Adam and Eve in order to enable them live their best life. The same day that Adam and Eve failed to dominate their environment and control the surrounding circumstances in their neighborhood of life is the day that life difficulties was born to our world. The implication here is that God will not control your life for you, but can guide you to do well and achieve excellence and success. This mandate, given by God to have you subdue and rule your environment means that God will show you the way to your health, your financial increase, your joy and happiness, and your success and prosperity, but you have to do the walking. If you don’t understand that you are a powerful person, you cannot do the walking that will promote your life.

You Can Dominate & Decide What’s Next

It means that you have the power to decide what’s next and what happens around your life, since you have been powered by God and welcomed to share in the economy of his grace. Because, you are for the most part, the product of what happens in your life environment, you are powered to bring into captivity every circumstance that will skew your promotion and prosperity and dictate the direction of your health, your finances, your marriage, your career—your future and the company you chose to facilitate your destiny. Dominating your circumstances will happen only when you understand your environment.

“You cannot remain in a negative environment and expect to do well.”

George Washington once said that: “it is better to be alone than in a bad company.” You are powerful. Don’t allow your circumstances to dominate you. You have immense power and the ability to do great and beautiful things with your life. You can control what happens around your life if you must attain success. When your circumstances dominate you, they control your life and dictate your actions and what’s next.

Entrepreneurs Must Learn to Find Strength in Adversity

After my fracas with my dad, I decided to find strength in adversity. What happened next was that one Sunday morning I left my village environment and moved to Aba metropolis to permanently live with my eldest sister, Daa Joy, who was a civil servant in Aba. Daa Joy, my eldest sister was a born again Christian and an accomplished singer in the church environment and ministerial activities. Before I repented, she has always scolded me for my youthful excesses and prayed fervently for me with my mom. As a new Aba resident, a Jambite and a hustler who hates to stay idle, I left to live permanently in Aba on a Sunday, by the next day being Monday, I was already employed. At first, I took a job as a security man—a guard (Gate Man) at Renascent Education Limited—a privately owned Nursery and primary school at #14 Omenazu Street off Faulks road in Aba. The owner of this school was a very progressive Ngwa businessman—elder Solomon Nwaejike. My immediate supervisor at this early learning education center was Dr. Sal Okwubunka my late uncles’ wife—popularly called Aunty Sal who linked me to the job as she was the school principal. Apart from the fact that the job did not pay well and I did not enjoy wasting my day seating at the gate all through the school hours, I did not like the gate environment where I had to force myself into smiling all the time to welcome every guest and to be accountable for the security of the pupils who were so energetic. Also, I believed that there was much that Aba metropolis could offer me. For this reason, I wanted bigger and better opportunities and to do better than I was doing. Because of these, two months into the job, I had to quit and resorted to my original plan for coming to Aba.

Seeing my zeal to answer my calling and follow my dream which was to become a minister, Daa Joy encouraged me to join the choir in the local church that she was heavily involved in. She introduced me to Pastor Kingsley Anonaba, who led me to sincerely accept Jesus Christ as my Lord and my personal savior, and became my spiritual mentor and role model and later helped to prepare me for ministry. I joined his prayer band—the Hidden Assurance and became a strong and visible member of the Hidden Assurance Program. We met during the week for group Bible study and on Sunday afternoons, we had powerful revival meetings and deliverance service that attracted people from most Christian denominations and was second to none at that point in Eastern Nigeria. The power of God moved so freely in these gatherings that miracles happened in people’s lives and transformation too.

Think Victorious and Go For Victory

When my eldest sister saw my determination to do what I came to Aba for and that I wanted to succeed as a representative of Home Health Education Service (HHES), she gave me every support I needed. For me, all that I thought during those days was victory. Then, I proceeded to do the training with the HHES publishing director for Aba region—Pastor Ifeanyi Mewu, and then started. To start, I needed to deposit some funds with the publishing department. I could not approach my father because of my fall out with him, so I went to the publishing director after a training session and narrated my story to pastor Mewu. Pastor Mewu, the publishing director was moved by my story, but as a good business man, he needed to balance his emotions with the reality on ground—since good business men don’t buy people’s story or trust people easily with their goods just by hearing their good stories because any business ran by people’s good stories told and based on emotions will go out of business sooner or later. Businesses are there to create more job opportunities, to compete, to make profit and thrive, not to be run by good people stories. That day, something unique happened because during the two days or so training where every prospective HHES representative is allowed to go to the field with the publishing director and where they are tasked to canvass people with the health books and catalogs in order to make sales, I was the singular person that made sales out of all the newly recruits.

You Can Win Big

The publishing director was exceptionally impressed as he noticed something unique about me. Now, what baffled the director was that the group of people that I successfully sold health books to, were one of the only groups that every HHES representative have less interest to approach in the first place. I had sold couple of health books such as: Your Health in your hands and your family and you etc. to members of the Nigerian Youth Service Corps (NYSC). Typically, NYSC members don’t have the luxury of purchasing books. They receive stipend from the federal government and majority of them struggle through life while in service. But it was this same group that I sold a significant amount of books to in cash, within a few hours I was sent out to the field and without any input from the publishing director who was still supervising other new recruits elsewhere in the city. Pastor Mewu had a white Volkswagen Beetles. Typically, he will segment the team and drive each newly recruited team to the field and demonstrated what he had taught during the training session by canvassing clients for some hours which are rotated, while the new recruits watch how he does it. That day, when I handed the publishing director the cash and receipt of the sales I had made in my first outing, he qualified me immediately to represent HHES and ask his secretary to proceed with the printing of my HHES Identification card etc.

You Are More Qualified Than You Think

When I achieved this feat, I reminded the publishing director that I do not have the required funds to deposit in order to start work the next day, unless he wanted me to quit. As a disciplined businessman with strong business ethics, the publishing director knew that losing me was not going to be in the best interest of his organization. For this reason, he asked that I should go and bring a shortee or simply put—a guarantor who must be employed by a reputable organization and must be on a certain salary scale to co-sign for a credit or book loan for me. To be honest, I was happy with the new opportunity HHES was going to offer me, but I felt that the director was being unnecessarily tough in this whole process—why not sign me up and believe that I will not default? Can’t the publishing director trust my sincerity and determination to excel? As a young inexperienced man who had only ran a successful banana business previously with village people in a village setting where everyone knew every one, these were my thoughts. Following the deal made to me by the publishing director, I took a taxi—I believe it was a Peugeot 504 sedan from #1 New Umuahia road Ogbo Hill Aba, where the publishing office was headquartered straight to Umungasi along Aba-Owerri Road where my sister and I lived. It was evening time. The work day was over. I narrated what has transpired during the day to Daa Joy, my sister. The following morning, Daa Joy followed me to the publishing office where she became my guarantor and co-signed that I will not default on the books I was given to start off on credit.

My Journey to Success

When I received my book loan from the publishing director, I had two major obstacles to overcome before I could start work as a fulltime HHES representative. The first problem was that I had no professional canvassing bag to carry my books and canvass clients in the city. The second problem which caused many HHES representatives to quit was the high cost of transportation since they depended on public transit or taxi to work. That day, I thought of how to mitigate the first problem. I reached out to my good friend; Mr. Obioma Dike who initially introduced me to HHES having joined years before me. Willingly and unstintingly, Obi as I fondly call him asked me to start canvassing with his own canvassing professional bag until I could be able to buy one for myself. What a friend? That was how I overcame that first obstacle and started canvassing the next day with books on loan from the publishing director and a borrowed canvassing bag from a friend! About three months into working for HHES as a canvasser or representative, I had successfully beaten every odd and limitations that discouraged a number of old timers who had quit working for HHES.

Use Your Obstacles and Turn Them to Success

The three major obstacles that older HHES representatives encountered were book availability and affordability, and affordable means of transportation in and around the city. Three months into working fulltime for HHES (this was in the 90’s), I had made sufficient money to purchase a second-hand Honda motorcycle—called Highjack that was in the same class of another popular motorcycle called Grandking which was completely paid for. I also paid back the entire loan I was given by the publishing director, and raised enough capital to purchase any book from the publishing house that I needed to canvass with. It was more magical than a reality to my contemporaries at HHES that knew me or had my experience shared. It got to the point where some of my fellow HHES representatives became suspicious of my successes and began suspecting that I may be using voodoo to do the exploits that I was doing in the market place.

Find Your Industry Advantage and Who Your Competitors Are

I canvassed everything and everyone: Roadside mechanics, local traders, students, business executives, taxi drivers, lawyers, physicians, public health practitioners, politicians, those in the police force, pharmacists, clinics, hospitals, banks and bankers, libraries, insurance companies and some of the major private enterprises in Aba, Port Harcourt, and the environs like those who work in the county government and civil servants at their office headquarters. It was about this time that I met Keziah Adaelu who worked at his father’s company—Chemlap Nigeria Limited in Aba. Sister Keziah as I fondly called her was a passionate lady that loved to empower young people with ambition. She was the door opener and very instrumental to my success in becoming the number one HHES representative that supplied books to other staff at Chemlap. When I gained access to Chemlap, I also supplied books to Elder Emmanuel Adaelu, Sister Keziah’s father and the founder and Chairman of Chemlap Nigeria Limited. Everyone in the company fell in love with me because I was very professional and I sold at the approved price set by HHES.

Respect the Laws and Keep Your Integrity

Robert Kiyosaki asked: “Why risk going to jail by engaging in illegal businesses when it is easier to make money legally?” Because I was sincere with the rules and regulations of HHES, including selling the books at the approved prices, I prospered. The problem with majority of people who wants to experience success is their small mind and their shallow way of thinking which tells them that doing short cut is a virtue and a genuine means for success. Breaking the law of your land like evading paying taxes, transacting fairly and not reaping people off is a good way to remain in business. This will later cause the former HHES representative who used to supply books to Chemlap employees over the years to lose business, because he reaped the employees of Chemlap off and sold books at exorbitant prices other than those approved by HHES by reason that he had monopoly to supply books at HHES over the years. When I came to Chemlap and sold on the approved HHES prices, word quickly spread around, and I made fortunes from that company as a HHES representative. I also canvassed local people at their homes, a practice that was almost non-existent among HHES representatives in Nigeria. I specialized mainly on health books, books on herbs and their medicinal values, books for singles, young mothers, stress management, nutrition, how to enjoy life and love and marriage literatures from Nancy Van Pelt and other authors. It got to a point where my colleagues at HHES nicknamed me “Medicinal Plant.”