The Audacity of God's Grace: 10 Strategies To Living Your Best Life Now (23 page)

Believe there is Money to Be Made in Your Locality or Country

Medicinal plant was a two-set encyclopedia published in English and in Spanish by Editorial Safeliz from Spain and one of the biggest and most costly books that HHES had on sale. I made most of my biggest sales and profits from this particular book. I sold it to physicians, nurses, pharmacists, and those that practice alternative medicine including regular people. Those who could not afford the encyclopedia at once were given a payment plan option with a little interest added on it.

Because many HHES representatives defaulted on books given to them on credit, every HHES representative were required to pay upfront for books and the taxes therein before the representatives sale them. Typically, 98% of the books on health, nutrition, stress management, diet and fitness, family life, love and marriage, and other religious literatures like the family bible we sold etc. that HHES had as its brand were shipped to Nigeria from Europe and America. For these reason, majority of these brand books were more costly than books published locally in Nigeria. But I built a brand on how to canvass these books, and because I believed that there was enough money in my locality—my nation, I sold a lot of these books.

Build a Brand and Don’t Destroy It

In order to be successful, I strategize to use different sales talks other than those received during our initial training with the publishing director which we were trained to memorize and recount before clients. I came up with my own marketing tactics contextualized to meet the need of each customer or audience, and built a brand with it. If I go to a place where there were mothers and children, I will first play with the kids or do something that gives me greater access to capture the enthusiasm of the kids and make their parents listen to what I have to offer. If I were going to a financial institution or bank to canvass the bank managers or directors, I will dress like a banker from another bank and used the same portfolios that bank managers used, and sometimes, to gain access, I will go on a reputable brand of car—a chartered car with a driver while I sit at the car owners side in order to get a pass at the security guards at the gate. Once most of these security men sees me driven in seated at the car owners side with my nicely clean ironed suit and identification card and my eye glasses, they will open the gate and say: “good day sir” and bow and direct the driver on where to pack inside the banking premises. I also organized seminars on health in schools and sold my books to the school staff after the seminars. On the weekends on some occasions, particularly on Sundays, I canvassed churches. During the weekdays, I will canvass the church pastors and gain their consent to present my books or display them to their members after worship service.

Work Hard & Expect God’s Favor

When I did not make much from canvassing on Sundays, I stopped. I started to use my motorcycle to do Okada transportation business on Sundays and made additional money those Sundays. My route for Okada business was majorly around MCC Road, World Bank Housing Estate areas and streets, Umule axis, and on few occasions Faulks Road area by Okigwe Road in the Aba metropolis. I was doing all these to save money for college. Motorcyclists’ business, popularly known as Okada business in Nigeria then is a business whereby a person can own a motorcycle and use it to transport others for a fee, or employ other riders to use the motorcycle to transports people in need of transportation and pay the owner of the motorcycle an agreed upon fee on a daily basis or to do what was called High Purchase. Because of my successes and exploits in HHES, my father soon noticed the dividends of my hard work and saw that I had become unstoppable in my dream and as a loving father who wants his children to become successful; he approved my educational passion of studying Theology, instead of going for a medical degree.

Don’t Be Selfish, Instead Inspire Others

I later encouraged one of my older brothers to join HHES as a representative in Aba and surprisingly my father approved the move without hesitation because I had set a good example. That older brother of mine had originally been the one everyone expected to become a pastor and to proceed to ASWA and study theology before I repented. He has a big mind to helping people and passion for God and ministry. This older brother of mine—Pastor Innocent Nwankwo who is now a powerful Gospel Minister in Imo State—Owerri areas will years later when I had left Babcock University, proceed to study theology and earn a Bachelor of Art degree in Theology and became a pastor instead of pursuing a military career he had been encouraged to pursue earlier on. He worked for HHES in Aba, with the same motorcycle that I purchased and used when I worked for HHES in Aba, which I left behind in Aba when I moved to Babcock University in Western Nigeria for my studies.

Capitalize On Your Areas of Strength, Not Your Weaknesses

While a student in Babcock University, I continued to work hard as a HHES representative on a part time basis. In fact, I professionally developed myself into a HHES brand name for canvassing on campus. I canvassed students and staff on campus and people in the neighboring communities. Because Babcock University is a privately owned university and expensive compared to most other government owned universities, I did work study on campus (cleaning the toilets) while pursuing my first degree in order to earn additional money to meet my financial obligations. I was employed in the janitorial/custodial department. Most mornings, at about 5 a.m. or earlier, I will wake up and clean the class room floors and washed the toilets and still attend my 7a.m classes. During summer holidays which begun from early May to September, I will work full time as a HHES representative in Nigeria or outside of the country for the four years that I spent as a student while I completed my first degree education in Babcock University. All my life, I knew nothing but that success begins with determination just as the wise man in the Christian Scriptures will say in (Proverbs 20:13 NLT) that: “those who love to sleep, will end up in poverty; but if you keep your eyes (an open mind) open, there will be plenty to eat [i.e. more than enough to go around].”

Be a Person of Significance and Make a Difference in Peoples’ Lives

The Wise Man in (Ecclesiastes 11:1 NIV) said: Cast your bread upon the waters, for after many days you will find it again. As a student of Babcock, I worked hard and was able to rise to the top among accomplished HHES representatives in Nigeria. My work ethic and professionalism in HHES quickly became noticeable among the students, campus staff, and the regional publishing directors in Nigeria. For this reason, I became the student president for HHES Student Club on the campus of Babcock University for the last two years before graduation. This position was a very political and highly competed position of all time in the history of Babcock because of the tribal and ethnic divide in Nigeria. Apart from working in the janitorial or custodial department while a student in Babcock, I also had a part time paid job as an associate pastor of Heirs of the Kingdom Chapel on campus, where Professor Sampson Nwaomah, an ordained minister and professor who was then the head of department of Religious Studies department was my senior pastor and supervisor. Pastor Sampson Nwaomah will later join my wife and I in holy matrimony. My wife was the choir director and church pianist of the church I pastored—Heirs of the Kingdom chapel on campus while completing her nursing degree at Babcock University.

Get Connected Outside the Box

It was during one of those summers when I worked as a HHES representative in the federal capital territory of Nigeria—Abuja, that I met Mrs. Folake Adeniyi and her husband who were like parents to me in a number of ways, and we became family friends. Mrs. Adeniyi is an educator and a business woman. The couple had three sons and two lovely daughters—Bunmi and Tolu. Tolu and Dapo—one of the sons were my contemporaries at Babcock. These family were very good Christians. In those days, I will go to eat at their house. Mrs. Adeniyi’s husband, elder Adeniyi who now is a lawyer, worked and retired with the Federal Ministry of Water Resources in Abuja.

Several years later while I resided in the US, because of my friendship with this family, I picked up my cell phone one certain day and put a call to Tolu. It was a simple question: When are you coming to the USA? Her answer: I am seriously considering it. As God will have it, when it was God’s time for her to come, I was privileged to be the one to receive Tolu and pick her up at the Los Angeles International Airport in California when she immigrated to the USA to pursue a graduate study in La Sierra University where she graduated with a Master of Business Administration (MBA). Tolu followed the great example from her Christian family and served selflessly as one of our ministry officers at our church ministry in the USA—The GraceWorld Christian Fellowship and worked as a faculty at our institution—Best American Healthcare University.

Tolu’s husband, a highly talented gentleman—Elder Gbenga Solademi who formerly was a banker and now the Chief Executive Officer of Pebble Gifts also graduated with a Master of Business Administration from my alma mater, La Sierra University and served as the head elder and treasurer of our church ministry while in the US. Dapo’s IT firm—Daydah Concepts, one of Mrs. Adeniyi’s sons and Tolu’s older brother a graduate of Computer Science from Babcock University will years later design one of my business websites. Honestly, when you trust God’s leadership and cast your bread upon the waters, what happens is that after many years it will come back to you (Ecclesiastes 11:1).

Respect those Who Connects You

While I worked for HHES in Abuja during one of those summer holidays as a student of Babcock University, elder Adeniyi, and Tolu’s father, helped to link me to some colleagues of his who I canvassed and a number of them bought books from me. There was one other Elder Ogbonna in the Federal Ministry of Agriculture who did the same. Also, Elder Washington Nwachukwu who was a director at the Nigerian Telecommunications Ltd (NITEL) in Abuja was one of my major clients. When he doesn’t buy, he makes sure he recommends his colleagues to buy from me. Others like Elder Chinkata Esiaba who was then working as a top officer in the Nigerian Deposit Insurance Corporation (NDIC) in Abuja was very instrumental to linking me up with most of his work colleagues who bought handsomely from me. I will not forget these people any time soon. They will always have my respect, for they helped to make me the person I am today. The NDIC is a parastatal under the Nigerian Ministry of Finance, tasked with protecting the banking system from instability occasioned by runs and loss of depositors’ confidence and operates under the Nigeria Deposit Insurance Corporation Act (1990). Mrs. Folake Adeniyi publishes and sold computer books for early learners, something that was nonexistent among the books we sold at HHES. Eventually, she was in charge of the publishing house for HHES in Abuja. I quickly added her computer books to the portfolios of books I sold to early learning schools.

Success is a Procedural Journey, Not an Event

Success for me is perceived to be a procedural journey, network, connections of deliberate and repeated actions, which are powered by a spirit of hard work, determination, and excellence. In my first journey to work for HHES in Abuja, I lived with one of my uncles from our village—De Ugboma Chigbu and his family, as accommodation and transportation were very expensive in Abuja. This Christian opened their home and took good care of me. The following summer in my second missionary journey as I worked in Abuja; to mitigate the problem of transportation that was very expensive, I bought and took a Honda motorcycle to Abuja which I used to work for HHES that summer. One Sunday morning, as I was going to Mrs. Adeniyi’s house to get books which I will use to work the following day—Monday, I was involved in a ghastly motor accident that nearly claimed my life at a traffic intersection near Herbert Macaulay Way, in the Central Business District zone, where the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) is headquartered.

Always Ask For God’s Grace and Depend on God’s Protection

A Jambite who did not properly know how to drive a car was tasked to wash a brand new car his older brother had just bought. His older brother took a cab to attend a church service as he was still attending driving school, to learn how to drive. This Jambite younger brother of his decided to put the car on the road and lost control of the vehicle at a traffic intersection. That morning as I was riding my motorcycle to Mrs. Adeniyi’s house, I was waiting in the intersection for the traffic light to change from Red to Green. As the light changed to green, I moved towards my direction and the next thing I had was what sounded like an explosion—Poahaaa!!! I had been hit badly and I fainted. I had multiple wounds and was in great pain.

I narrowly cheated death that morning. My Honda motorcycle was shattered and scattered all over the places. Graciously, God had miraculously spared my life. Several years have passed since this accident took place, and yet, each time I visualized what took place that day, I still cannot make sense of how I escaped death that morning other than believing that the supernatural power of God’s grace—God’s wings of safety was nested around me. The motorcycle I was riding was hit at the adjacent direction. If I was carrying any person, that person would have been crushed with the speed as the vehicle was on full speed. Instead of stopping and obeying the traffic laws by allowing me to proceed, the novice driver had maintained the same velocity with which he was accelerating the vehicle when it was green on my side to proceed at the traffic intersection.

Prayer Works

At the time of this accident, I lived with my sister—Da Chioma and the husband, Mr. Chinyere Ayim, popularly called Nyerere. At the Nyerere’s household, prayer and exuberant praises to God were never lacking every morning as we sought for God’s favor and protections for our daily lives during morning devotions. No Dick or Tom was excused from attending these morning praise and prayer sessions so long as you lived under the roof of Nyerere’s household. The family believed in prayer and the efficacy of God’s word and promises. This household was very thankful to God for sparing my live from the auto accident and was very supportive throughout this ordeal and kept encouraging me. Uncle Nyerere is a born again Christian, a politician, a successful businessman and a very generous man. He was then, the General Manager for Rochas Group of Companies Limited owned by Rochas Okorocha (Rochas Okorocha will later became the democratically elected executive governor of Imo State and continued to work with Nyerere). Da Chioma and Uncle Nyerere’s influenced my life for good. This couple had many in-laws, relatives, brothers, and sisters who lived in their house in Abuja. They also trained a number of these people. Uncle Nyerere had great respect for me for my entrepreneurial abilities and always encouraged me to dream bigger. Later, Uncle Nyerere will become a board member of Best American Healthcare University—the higher education of learning that my wife and I founded in California.