Miracles in the Bible were things that went against the laws of nature: talking donkeys, water to wine; walk on water; raise the dead. Elite stuff.
In Nigeria today a miracle is just getting through everyday life: find food, pass exams, get a job, buy a car, get married, travel.
People want to simplify you, understand you and then dismiss you. When it is hard for them to do, they either dislike you or worship you as they seek to learn more.
Those who have mastered power maintain the myth. This is something counterintuitive about managing people.
Almost all my professors in grad/business school outside Africa were millionaires. That was, however, not the greatest achievement of their lives. It was a consequence of their achievement and not the goal. They were business builders who decided to also build people afterward.
When nothing is working, explore and make a lot of small bets.
After something starts working, double down on what works best.
When that stops working, explore and make a lot of small bets again.
Stop being frustrated at the slow pace of progress you seem to be making in life.
Behind all the shiny LinkedIn and Instagram updates from your contemporaries, they're exactly as broke and unhappy as you are.
Growth will take time. Give yourself time.
The city of Brooklyn, New York generates approximately 6 times the wealth generated by the country of Niger every year, despite having a population equal to only 10% that of Niger.
Niger's stunning poverty was never at any point a global headline or an American foreign policy priority. Whatever happened to an impoverished, insignificant country in the African Sahel region wasn't really anybody's business.
The only time the US took note of Niger was when it spent $100m (approximately 0.4% of the country's GDP) on a military drone base in Agadez. Miserable multi-generational poverty? Extremely flawed faux-democracy? Who cares. Just a bunch of black Africans who are poor and powerless, as God surely intended.
Now that the poorly-governed country has (unsurprisingly) suffered a military coup and the drone base, uranium mines and gas pipeline intended to sideline Russia are under threat, suddenly Biden, Harris and Blinken have Tyrone on speed dial, urging him to send Nigeria's woefully under-equipped military into Niger to restore the status quo.
As usual, whatever will become of the 21 million impoverished Africans in Niger, plus the 200 million slightly less-impoverished Africans next door in Nigeria is not just less important, but completely irrelevant as far as American foreign policy doctrine is concerned.
Africans are apparently just 1.2 billion+ inconveniently-located organic obstacles between The Countries That Actually Matter and their foreign policy goals + cheap natural resources.
We thought we were in 2023, but it turns out we live in the timeline where our version of 1884 has Gender Studies and TikTok.
Pius Adesanmi’s ‘Parable of the Shower head’ talks about the Nigerian’s general anyhowness - failing to put our best.
But like my theory explains, we don’t do our best, because we just don’t know how to do ‘the best.’
Machines have afforded this man quick fixes. The lines, arches all well laid because he has the machines and the knowledge to use them.
To achieve excellence, you have to think science, first.