Ladies. Very interesting research by Carothoracic Surgeon, Dr Nicki Stamp about how heart break can literally break us.
Did you know that for women who are divorced, the risk of a heart attack is between 1.29 to 1.39 times higher than for women who are continuously married?
For men, the figures are similar, with the risk of heart attack for divorcees 1.38 times greater than for their married counterparts.
What is different, though, is that when men remarry that risk drops back down to a similar level to that of their continuously married mates.
A US study of more than 16,000 patients found a scary trend: for both men and women divorce increases the risk of having a heart attack; however, for women that risk is even higher, especially for women who are currently divorced.
Now here’s when things get a little unfair for ladies.
If you remarry, your risk of a heart attack doesn’t lower.
For the men, however, the risk goes down a little. And, unsurprisingly, the more divorces you have the worse it is for your heart.
Heartbreak affects our mental health, but also our physical health.
A lot of the rhetoric around success in Nigeria leaves us all hoping for a lucky break.
"Divine favour"
"Unmerited promotion"
"The only alert in your life this year will credit alert"
These things happen. But not for most people.
But there are things that you can do everyday that can increase your chances without having to rely on that one lucky break...and even increase your chances of having a lucky break.
1. Read as much as you can in your field/intended field
2. Try to spot statistical trends around what industries are currently or going to be "hot"
3. Take post graduate qualifications e.g an MBA/MSc/CFA/post grad diploma
I have often found mentorship relationships with people that have a lot more money/success than me extremely difficult to maintain. Mentorship relationships nearly always have to be pro quid quo.
When you have nothing significant to give the other person, it sometimes gets awkward. If its a man, especially an older Nigerian man, he may start pestering you for sex.
And don't be deceived by the urban myths of rich men buying cars & houses for female "mentees"
What's far more common is the rich guy will pester you & harass you under the guise of "mentorship". You will get absolutely nothing in return except for a few aspire/perspire motivational speeches.
If its a woman, she may simply stop picking your calls after a while.
At the beginning of the year we expanded our in house personnel development program to include sponsoring team members to do their MBA, CFA, mini-MBA & FMI qualifications.
But recently we added the Financial Modeling & Valuation Analyst (FMVA)® Certification for the following reasons; 1. It's super practical 2. It's completely online 3. The tutors have practical industry experience
4. Many financial courses miss out power point training for pitch books etc. FMVA includes this in their course
In America and especially in Europe, pension funds were conservative. They didn't move into VC until the ecosystem was established with plenty of exits and a number of experienced GP's with rock solid track records.
In Africa: 1. The VC asset class is still new 2. Still few exits 3. Undeveloped stock exchanges/ M&A markets which reduce the frequency of liquidity events 4. Low number of experienced GP's with stellar track records 5. Far more attractive fixed income returns than America/EU
6. Macroeconomics problems like inflation and devaluation 7. Regulations that only allow them to invest in certain types of assets
I believe pension funds will come along soon, but it's their job to be conservative.