January 2010 was a truly consequential month in my family’s life.
Our daughter, Audrey, was a healthy beautiful baby who was growing up with the full complement of her mom and dad’s love.
I was a professor at the University of Georgia and my wife, an architect, had taken some time off work in order to spend more time with our baby. Sometime that month, my wife started preparing to return to work so we had to start searching for a daycare program for Audrey.
We visited a couple of programs in our neighborhood and couldn’t make a choice until we arrived at the Goddard Daycare Center. It was close enough to our house and I really liked the daycare program but we couldn’t afford it so we had to sign up with a lower-priced competitor.
That day, I got home and decided that I did not want to continue to make those kinds of decisions for my child for the rest of her life. I wanted to be able to afford some things that are slightly better than the basics of life for them.
Luxury sometimes corrodes the soul so the goal was not luxury. It was mostly about being able to make good educational choices for them regardless of the cost.
That day, I signed up for the GMAT exam. I studied for 3 months and resigned from my job in September of the same year to study for an MBA at Oxford.
The decision to let go of the “good” to pursue the “better” is responsible for everything I am today and for the wonderful OVERWOOD (overwood.ng) family that is making safe investments accessible to regular people across Africa.
Our time at Oxford was very humbling. We exchanged our beautiful 4-bedroom house for a one-bedroom flat in Oxford and left our two cars behind for an old bicycle we bought from a graduating student.
A - Our House in Georgia
B - Our flat in Oxford. Yes, that’s the whole flat.
I wrote this just to encourage you to continue to strive higher. Comfort is great but it is also the number one thief of destinies and visions. It’s easy to coast along once we attain a measure of comfort but sometimes a little bit of discomfort can trigger amazing growth.
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I have been pondering this question since I saw a documentary on Bushiri/Mboro/TB Joshua.
I think it's because humans seek SIMPLE answers to COMPLEX problems.
- A short thread.
Why am I not financially successful?
Complex solution:
- Maybe I need to develop more skills.
- Maybe systemic (country-wide)issues are responsible.
- Maybe I need to save more.
- Maybe, I need to start a side gig
Simple solution:
- I need to pray harder (enemies!).
Why am I struggling to hold down a relationship?
Complex solution:
- Maybe I need to be friendlier.
- Maybe I need to meet more people.
- Maybe I need to dress better.
- Maybe, I need to have realistic expectations.
Simple solution:
- I need to pray harder (enemies!).
An investment banker went to Bali, Indonesia on vacation.
He visited a small, fishing village and sat down to talk to the fishermen.
He told them about his 12-hour workdays, his six-figure salary, and the prestige of working on Wall Street.
"In 30 years, I will be worth a few million dollars and retire", He added. "After retiring, I will move to a place like this and buy a nice house and fish all day and sleep whenever I feel like sleeping and wake up whenever I feel like waking up and enjoy a quiet, peaceful life.
The fishermen were confused.
They looked at him weirdly and asked, "Why then do you have to work as a slave for 30 years so that you can live our current lifestyle?"
We moved to Lagos, Nigeria to build a startup that would provide virtual education content to students across Africa.
LessonTab was born on October 1, 2011.
We hired a bunch of teachers, recorded hours of Maths, English Language, Science, and Social Studies lessons, and started trying to sell the idea of virtual lesson teachers to parents.
It was a new concept so we had to do a lot of demonstrations.