Driving Your Success

Published in the UK in 2022 by TalentAcademy

Copyright © Favour Onabanjo 2022

Favour Onabanjo has asserted her right under

the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988,

to be identified as the author of this work.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieved system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, scanning, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the author and publisher.

Paperback ISBN 978-1-7391157-0-8

eBook ISBN 978-1-7391157-1-5

Cover design and typeset by SpiffingCovers.com

Every effort has been made to trace copyright holders and obtain their permission for the use of copyright material.

Contents

Preface

Introduction

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Conclusion

About The Author

About Talentsbrand

PREFACE

As Germany Kent once said, "God has already equipped you with the skills you need to achieve your dreams. If you just try, work hard, take control of your destiny, remain true to yourself and believe it is possible, you will have unlimited power to achieve the impossible."

This sounds deceptively simple. It is often scary to follow a dream you have held in your heart for many years without knowing whether it will work out or not. It can be daunting to step outside of your comfort zone and put yourself out there for something you really desire. Will you make it? Will you fail? What might people think of you if you fail? It is easy to get bogged down with such thoughts.

The problem is that sometimes, we make excuses to explain why things won’t work without even trying. It is a way to avoid failure and disappointment. But listen, the only way you know for sure that you’ll fail is if you never try at all. It’s time to move past your fears and fight the inner voice telling you that you won’t be able to make it. Because the truth is, you can make it! My intention for this book is to prove this to you.

Far too often, we rely on others to give us the motivation we need to pursue our dreams. Yet we forget that not everyone will understand our dreams or share the same values as us. This doesn’t always mean that people don’t believe in you or your dreams, though. Often, those who don’t seem to take you seriously, or even outright discourage your lofty ambitions are most likely projecting their own realities or insecurities onto you.

That’s why you must learn how to be your own cheerleader, which is one of the things this book is set to ingrain in your heart. You don’t need a fan club. You need to learn how to motivate yourself as if you were motivating a friend and move your life decidedly forward because it’s only you who knows what you want. You are the author of your destiny.

You will see in this book that, considering my humble background, if I ever relied on my own family to give me some kind of motivation before I could move my life forwards, I would never even have gotten near where I am today.

That perfect moment where everything aligns, where someone is showering you with motivation, and everyone is on your side, may well never come. Perfect moments like that don’t really exist. What does exist is this moment you’re living right now. It’s time to start where you are, use what you have, and do what you can to make your dream happen.

So, stop waiting for some external motivation. Motivate yourself. Discover who you are. Understand your core values, and create the greater you.

This book will help you understand the baby steps that will turn into great strides. You will know what it means to make meaningful progress in line with your core values.

Unlocking your potential and fulfilling your purpose are very significant to your achievements in any sphere of life. The height you will attain tomorrow is an offshoot of giving your best in everything you do today, backed with a strong determination to succeed. With these elements in place, there’s no height you cannot reach.

It will be my greatest joy to see you on the other side with purpose, fulfilment, and satisfaction.

Congratulations in advance!

Favour

INTRODUCTION

DRIVING YOUR SUCCESS – Be Your Own Life Architect is an exposé on getting the most out of your life — irrespective of your age, sex, colour, background, advantages, or disadvantages.

I want to begin by explaining a little about my background, as it will form the basis of several points made throughout the book.

I grew up in West Nigeria, Africa. I was the youngest of my mother’s children. My mother was a Christian, but my father was a Muslim, so he had another wife and several children.

As things turned out, I lost my mum at age five, and as a result, it

was decided that I would move over to stay with my aunt.

My aunt was a strict lady who believed that only hard work could take you wherever you wanted to get in life. She thought it was wrong to waste a single minute. You just had to be doing something. You can’t sit idle when there are things to be done. You must clear your table before you think of resting or playing. That is what I grew up to know, and it instilled a strong work ethic in me. I became adept at planning and being organised, so much so that my current career revolves around these skills. I now coach people in the area of productivity.

I came from an entrepreneurial family. All they knew was trading goods. No one in my family ever went to university. No one was educated, and we lived in a rural area. However, they were champions in their businesses and well known in the local community.

Nevertheless, as a child, whenever I had a chance to visit the city and saw men in white shirts and suits and ladies in their cute skirts going to work, I looked at them with so much admiration. I wished that one day I could be like them. There was something about that corporate dress that fascinated the young me. These people looked important, and in control, like they had a sense of purpose and satisfaction in life.

Back in those days, to live the corporate lifestyle, you had to be a banker, a lawyer, a doctor, etc. With time, I found out that the only way I could be like them was to go to university and study one of those courses.

But here I was with parents who never went to school. The highest level of education in my family was just primary school. In fact, the people who attended secondary school then were worshipped. My family didn’t appreciate education so much, perhaps they did, but they had so many children and didn’t believe they could invest so much money in me. Education was costly, so the thought of sending me to university was inconceivable.

In addition, the prevailing belief at that time was that it wasn’t worth it to invest in a female child’s education, as they would end up getting married and being a wife or mother, and nothing more.

Perhaps all of this pressure to conform to the rest of my society pushed my dreams further in the opposite direction. All I knew was that I needed to become that astute, confident businesswoman I dreamed about. And I needed to do it on my own.

But how?

My family were already planning for me to be enrolled on a nursing apprenticeship program in a local clinic once I finished school. Still, I was creating my own plan to relocate to the city (Lagos, Nigeria) where all my elder brothers and sisters were. Moving would allow me to experience another way of life and explore the available universities that I wished to go to. I could also raise money to sit my GCE exams.

With some persuasion, I convinced my family to let me go. I set off to Lagos, knowing I’d never be going back to my hometown.

So, one of my missions was accomplished. As soon as I landed in Lagos, I set about finding a job to raise the money to sit my exams. At this time, I was 19 years old.

To cut a long story short, life wasn’t as easy as I had planned. I found a job, and I later started my own business buying and selling goods, but it was definitely not the kind of trading I would have done in the community where I grew up.

I spent three years studying for my GCE, but I hadn’t passed. By this time, I had already started doing well in my business; I even went ahead and completed an introductory computer course, but I hadn’t passed my GCE, without which I couldn’t gain admission into the university.

It was really a tug of war.

I entered into a period of reflection, and during this period, I set about implementing a lot of the advice in this book. I worked on my identity, became more focused, and visualised the path ahead of me.

Four years after leaving my hometown, I finally passed the GCE exams and gained admission to study Banking and Finance at Lagos State University. I graduated with honours and became the first university graduate in my family.

The funny thing is, during my time at university, I was still running a business that was becoming increasingly successful. There was high demand for my stock. In less than three years, I had a retail store with two members of staff, and two years later, I became a wholesaler distributing baby and pregnant mother accessories to local stores. I also experimented with buy-now-pay-later schemes and deliveries to offices, both of which were successful. I was becoming adept at finding people’s pain points.

The business continued to grow, and I recruited more staff. By the time I graduated from university, I didn’t feel the need to look for a job in a bank as I had always dreamed of doing. Instead, I focused on the business.

I didn’t have any prior connection to most of the people I worked with. This includes my customers. I would just walk into an office, ask to speak to a manager, share my story and tell them what I was selling. This was how I built my network then. These were the days of no social media! I remember one of those periods; I went into a giant telecoms company in the city of Lagos intending to sell my products (clothes and fashion accessories). I had done some research before visiting this office, and I knew it would be challenging to access the building due to the security at the entrance. But I knew I would have potential buyers in this office. I had previously tried to visit the office, but I was denied access. So, I decided to follow the saying give, and it shall be given to you. I decided to sign up for their phone contract, which was the only reason I was allowed into the office. The moment I gained entrance, I created relationships with people, quickly exchanging contact information. I built on those relationships, and within a month, I started selling my merchandise to nearly 50% of the staff. From there, I got introduced to their friends in other offices/establishments.

It wasn’t long after that I got married. I broke my family tradition of having Muslim weddings and held a Christian church wedding. I was feeling more confident in my identity and beliefs at this point.

Two years into my marriage, my husband decided he would like to relocate to the UK because he believed more opportunities were there. I disagreed. My philosophy is that you can create opportunities wherever you are and under any circumstances.

But it eventually became clear that one of us would have to change for our marriage to be a success. It took me a year to reflect on the choice, but I eventually decided to sell my business and relocate to the UK. I finally relocated to the UK a year after my husband.

Moving to the UK was another significant change for me. It meant I had to learn a new culture and adapt to it. I had to learn to adapt